knitting – Page 7

Knitting and Fabric Shops in Coastal Maine

August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment

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-STORE-PICTURE — 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

onboard_fabrics_barn — 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

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

cashmere goat camden me — '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,

Knitting Sock Heaven Belfast ME — 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 KidLin Mexican Orange — 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!

Impressions

August 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Greenhouse Tank finished!

Famous Knitter or just Famous?

July 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Each year at some point in our Maine sailing adventures we go out to Allen Island, a lovely getaway for the well known Wyeth family where they have very nicely placed a few moorings for visiting boaters to enjoy. Last year I was thrilled when Betsy Wyeth arrived at the island and waved to me from her launch. But this year’s visit topped even that. Betsy sat outside her house with a basket of knitting; I sat aboard Pandora with my knitting. We each sat knitting and watching the other knitting.

So, Where in the world were my Signature Arts knitting needles? At Allen Island, a rather private place only accessible to those with means of traveling on the water, where they rubbed shoulders with Betsy Wyeth’s needles!

And, by the way, there are about 100 sheep on Allen Island….and it is the spot where George Waymouth landed with his ship Archangel in 1605.

And that was the day I finished my “Garden Tank” by Deborah Newton. Deborah’s designs are extremely attractive and wearable for many body shapes which makes her one of my favorite knitwear designers!

What I love about this design: the simple lace pattern that does not overwhelm the sweater, the flattering boat neck, the A-line ‘swing’ shape, the armhole shaping, the way the lace creates a scalloped edge at the hem!

In Interweave Knits the sweater was knitted with Manos del Uruguay “Serena” (60% alpaca, 40% cotton). Now maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t alpaca one of the warmest fibers? So even with the addition of 40% cotton, wouldn’t this be too warm for a summer tank top? I decided to use raw silk, and since this yarn has virtually no elasticity I made the top with zero ease. I’m very happy with the fit!

Wild Kingdom!

July 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment

I spent most of yesterday watching the bird life around Snow Island. There are several ospreys in the area, more than I’ve seen in one place before, and they all seem intent on ridding themselves of the eagles in the area. The ospreys worked together to dive bomb the eagles, and I’m not sure if they were just claiming their hunting territory of if the eagles pose some additional threat. I know some birds steal the nests of others. Clearly, for reasons I may not fully understand, the ospreys do not wish to cohabitate with eagles!

This eagle sat calmly in the tree while a group of ospreys hurled themselves and dived down on her/him! Right nearby was the eagle’s nest complete with adolescent eaglet.

Well, I know this eaglet is hard to see even if you ‘bigify’ the photo…nest is near the center of the image. I marveled at the parent eagle bringing food to this baby whose sharp beak and claws surely must make parenting difficult!

Yesterday was one of those Maine days that is so clear everything appears super-focused. I took photos of water and sky, and I hope someday they will be useful to developing a cartoon for a tapestry.

And I finished one of my summer books….

Summer reading:

This is a fascinating history of New York before the English, when it was the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. The author gives vivid images of life in this colony through the written records and correspondence of that period and shows that the Dutch culture has lived on to the present time in current New York culture. His premise is that New York is still more Dutch than English, and that the Dutch culture of the 17th century is the core of American culture. He does a great job!

Amazing book!…too moving to describe. I highly recommend it! I bought it for reading on board, but I finished it the day I took sneak peak at home….

I just finished this yesterday, while watching the bird life here. A wonderful story written from the point of view of three different women during the year before American involvement in WWII, during the blitzkrieg of London and the rounding of up Jews throughout Europe. I put this near the top of very few books that I will always treasure!

Just started this yesterday, and I’m hooked. I don’t normally stumble on so many good books all at once! I feel incredibly lucky….

And I’m looking forward to Water for Elephants that is on my phone. I can’t see the movie until I read (or listen to!) the book!

The day will end with a dinner of fresh local veggies and local cheese from the this quaint farm stand in Five Islands Habor….oh, and a bouquet of dark red dahlias, feverfew, and love in a mist!

Five Islands Farm Stand — Five Islands Harbor Farm Stand

Inspiration in Maine

July 14, 2011 | 3 Comments

Typically Maine, the weather changed every couple of hours yesterday, and the sights made me think about trying to capture the essence of a place in imagery…..which made me think of Joan Baxter’s tapestries. She has mastered conveying a sense of place for Scotland, with tapestries that are full of mists and myth and mystery. After 15 summers in Maine maybe I am getting a sense of this place….also a place of mists as well as brilliant sun and sharply focused views.

As we sailed out of the Basin and Cundy’s Harbor yesterday, the sky behind us grew very dark, and shortly into our trip we were overtaken by a squall. Twenty minutes later the shoreline and islands glowed in the fresh new light and sparkled from the rain. We were headed to Snow Island, and just as we approached we saw an eagle soaring overhead! He (she?) landed on a rock right nearby to dry his wings.

In the trees just to the left in this photo was another eagle! We could not get the two birds together in one photo!

After anchoring another quadrant of the sky darkened, and another squall passed through. The quality of light is decidedly Maine to me, and something I’d like to capture in a future tapestry.

: Approaching Squall

Can you see the eagle in the lone tree just right of center in the photograph? All in all, we saw three eagles at Snow Island.

Before heading to Snow Island I spent a good part of the day working on another sweater…. Deborah Newton’s “Greenhouse Tank” which is in the current issue of Interweave Knits.

Greenhouse1 — Deborah Newton's Greenhouse tank

Deborah Newton is one of my favorite knitting designers. Her designs are lovely and fit beautifully! I am really hoping this will be more flattering than my Plymouth “Kudo” sweater!

I am working this sweater in raw silk from Tess Designer Yarns in a colorway called Bahama Bay.

: Deborah Newton’s “Greenhouse Tank” knitted in Tess Designer Yarns “Bahama Bay” raw silk

More about this sweater in another post…..