Knitting in Maine

One last post about my two week trip though parts of New York and New England.  What a great trip: visiting with family and friends, getting to see the countryside in spring and, of course, visiting a few yarn shops along the way.  My last stop was in Maine and I made a point of stopping at the Saco River Yarn shop in Biddeford.  This shop is located in a huge old brick factory building, the kind you see scattered all over New England, usually located in the heart of a small town.  The factories, which were built in the 1870's,  have stood empty for years.  The Saco River Dye House has moved in, along with Quince and Co. and Saco River Yarns.

                                                                                 

Here is a picture of the old factory floor:

And here is Lisa in her shop.  They are still getting more inventory, but they have all the Quince and Co's yarns and colors and it was nice to be able to see all the colors there.  As the sign over her head says, "Good Things Take Time".  If you are interested in tours of the dyeing process at the dye house, give them a call to find out their schedule.

                                                                                

Quince and Co's order entry department:

I bought some Chickadee in the color Bird's Egg:

The Piper's Journey shawl was made with Chickadee:

There's more to tell about my trip but I'm running out of time so I guess this won't be my last post on knitting in Maine.  Here is my Irish Coffee - only a few more inches to go and then the ribbing and then I pick up the sleeve stitches.

                                                                                 

Head over to Tami's blog to see what others are working on.

Fiber Arts Friday and Maine

It's Fiber Arts Friday and I actually have some progress to show on my Irish Coffee sweater thanks in part to a book I have been listening to called The Burgess Boys:


                                                                                 

 This is the latest  from Elizabeth Strout who won the Pulitzer Prize for a previous book called Olive Kitteridge  and it was hard to put it down,  er, stop listening to, thus all the knitting progress on my sweater.   My trip included a few days in Maine and I thought it would be fun to listen to a book about a Maine family, the Burgess boys and their sister, and so I downloaded this from Audible.com.  The writing is well done, and accurately portrays life in a small town in Maine for the locals who are dealing with a declining economy and population and, at the same time,  adjusting to a new and growing population of Somali refugees.  The Burgess boys left Maine years ago and are New York attorneys who come back home to help their nephew through a crisis.  It's now on the NY Times Bestseller list.

Here's the progress on my Irish Coffee:

                                                                       

Lots more to tell about my trip to Maine and the yarn shops I stopped to visit, but more about that later.  I'll leave you with a picture of the historic Portland Head Lighthouse which is probably recognizable to just about everyone who has a lighthouse calendar or has seen the Edward Hopper painting of it :


                                                                                   

To see what others are up to on Fiber Arts Friday, head over to Andrea's blog.                                                                                                                                                                  

Edith Wharton and a trip to WEBS

Spending a few days in The Berkshires, that's Western Massachusetts for those who don't know the area. Enjoying the  warm weather and the charming and gracious small villages that give this area it's character.  In the early 20th century this area was the summer home for many famous writers including Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton and her good friend Henry James.
One of Edith's first books, The House of Mirth,  was wildly successful when first published and was followed by other books that were also very popular, including The Age of Innocence for which she won the Pulitzer Prize and this was later made into a movie with Daniel Day Lewis:



                                                                               

                                                                             

Edith used some of the money that she made on her books to build a beautiful estate in The Berkshires
called The Mount and I was lucky to have an impromptu tour by a friend who volunteered there.


                                                                         

Here are a few more pictures of her home where she entertained her fellow writers.


                                                                                     

 

                                                                                 

I love the details in her dining room and bedroom:

                                                                         

The Mount is open for tours and other events in the summer and they also have a nice cafe on the large terrace which overlooks the gardens.  Since this is early Spring there wasn't much to see in the garden,  but I am sure this must be a fabulous spot in the summer and it's available for weddings.

I left this lovely place and headed on to Northampton to visit WEBS:

                                                                                     

                                                                     

They are in the middle of their 2 month sale and I checked out what they had available in their back room:

                                                                                     

I bought 8 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool which was on sale for a project to be named at a later date, possibly Hannah Fettig's Schoodic cardigan.

                                                                         

                                                                           

                                                                                 

       

On to Maine and more adventures!