Several of our usual ports have surprised me with wonderful knitting and fabric shops! Our ‘guest room’ is quickly filling up with my treasures!
Bath: Halcyon (the photo on their homepage is that Ecobaby sailor pattern! Ha!) I have to admit that I’ve never been to Halcyon by
Halcyon Yarn
boat, but I have been going by car for 15 years. You could get there by boat if you wanted to go that far up the Kennebec River and brave its challenging currents. In all the years I’ve driven over that bridge I’ve never actually seen a sailboat moored in the river near Bath. That’s not to say no sailboats ever go, just that I haven’t seen them on my yearly visit. And what can I say about Halcyon, other than it is a weaver’s and knitter’s Mecca, not to mention spinners, rug hookers, crocheters, braiders, felters, etc…etc… If you do anything related to fiber, this is a great resource! Halcyon is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. I had a wonderful shopping spree there!
Boothbay Harbor: You need a car to get to Onboard Fabrics, but it is really worth it! It’s a barn on Rte 127 (and their address is Edgecomb but my point of view is the harbor where a sailing seamstress might disembark), not far off Rte. 1 on the way to
On Board Fabrics, near Boothbay Harbor
Boothbay Harbor. They have lots of nautical fabrics, inweights from upholstery to cotton lawn. This year I bought fabrics to make aprons for gifts. No sewing machine on board Pandora, so these projects will have to wait ’til I get home (meanwhile, my husband does have his sailrite sewing machine on board…but it will only sew heavy canvas and sail materials!).
Rockland: Quilt Divas. They have fabric and yarn! And the selections for both are great! It is walking distance from the harbor
Quilt Divas in Rockland also has a large selection of yarn and knitting books
for us sailors! I bought the Debbie Bliss “Ecobaby” book here as well as the yarn for the sailor sweater that is currently challenging me to re-design the collar! I also bought more fabric for aprons here. Now I’m going to make a lot of aprons for gifts!
Camden: The Cashmere Goat is new this year, in a good location right in the center of town (what used to be a shoe store). The shop
'The Cashmere Goat in Camden
is not yet full, but they do have some wonderful yarns. I bought Manos del Uruguay’s “Serena” (kettle dyed, 60% baby alpaca, 40% pima cotton) in a handpainted colorway (#9796) of watery blues and greens. I’m going to knit a lace shawl from one of the free patterns at Interweave Knits
Belfast: Sock Heaven. This yarn store has been in business for about 10 years now, but I haven’t been to Belfast in about 15 years,
Heavenly Socks in Belfast
so it is new to me! There is an entire wall of yarns produced in Maine, including Hope Spinnery and Done Roving. My big score here was Louet “KidLin”(49% linen, 35% kid mohair, 16% nylon) which I’ve been hoping to find during all my yarn store hunting. It was hard to choose a color for Louet’s “Cia” Pattern, but I finally settled on “Mexican Orange,” a fun blend of gold and warm pink.
There is also a beautiful fabric store on High St. in Belfast. I did not note the name yesterday, but I hope to go back today to spend more time there. I will take a photo and get the name!
Other places. I’ve been to the guild shop in the center of Blue Hill, as well as the yarn shop slightly out of town that has since gone out of busines (sigh…), and I’ve been to Shirley’s Yarns in Hancock (where I bought Dale microfiber years ago for a tank top I never finished because it was so unflattering on me!). Now I understand there are two shops in Blue Hill that I may not know: Blue Hill Yarn shop on Ellsworth Rd. and String Theory on Beach Hill Rd. I don’t know if we’ll get to Blue Hill this year, but now I hope so! And a google search shows two promising shops on Mt. Desert, one in Southwest Harbor (Lilac Lily Yarn Shop) and one in Bar Harbor (Bee’s, Inc.), so I hope to visit both of these since we are on our way there for the weekend.
I am putting aside the Debbie Bliss sailor sweater for the moment. This is quite a disappointment to me, but I do want to give some thought to that collar. The knitters on Ravelry did not have any solutions that appealed to me, so I will take a look in my library of knitting design books when I return home in September.
Here is my next knitting project, Louet’s “Cia.”
Louet's "Cia"
Louet's KidLin Mexican Orange
First I will finish my own design that uses Tess Designer Yarns’ micofiber ribbon. I’ll be writing up that pattern to share here and on Ravelry. It’s a very simple pattern, and I’m almost finished!
I love the change of seasons. The days are warm, and the sun on my skin feels almost like summer, ‘though by late afternoon there is a chill in the air that clearly means summer is gone…long gone. Yesterday and today I stood for a while in a blizzard of yellow leaves swirling all around me.
This is just a small portion of what was on display during the event, all made by members of this group.
These lace mavens do demonstrations all year long, at historic sites and local libraries. Somehow they manage to talk to people as they work. Impressive!
