Fiber Maine-ia 2010!

Fiber Maine-ia is an annual fiber Festival and Conference held at the University of Maine in the fall with demonstrations, workshops and presentations on Maine's textile history, spinning, farming (and more) and of course us vendors.
The photos above and below are new hand-dyed yarns from Purple Fleece. I bought a skein of that yummy orange yarn.
I love the Purple Fleece colors! And have fun with owner Debbie Bergman at fiber festivals. Debbie is my neighbor, friend, LYS owner and knitter, dyer, spinner and weaver extraordinaire.
Below is Heather from Highland Handmades. Heather is wicked funny. I laugh way too much when I am next to Heather.
Look at her gorgeous hand-dyed fiber!
I bought a skein of orange yarn from Heather, too, which was irresistibly called "Catcher in the Rye".
Here's Knitting Out Loud.
My dear friend Karen was a vendor too, and she has wonderful knitting and fiber books at Village Books. She sells fiber now!
Karen also makes me laugh too much. So naturally I take her everywhere, and next we will be at the Fiber Festival of New England, Springfield, Massachusetts.
The lovely yarn below is from Wandering Moose Fiber Farm in Argyle Township, Maine. A "township" in Maine is an area way up north with too few people to be a town. Sounds heavenly.
And below is gorgeous yarn from End of the World Farm. In Fayette, Maine.

Pictured below is gorgeous undyed yarn from Betty Hauger's Romney and Navajo Churro sheep. She is in Winterport, Maine.
I think of this as "my" shawl. I loved it so much I bought some of Betty's yarn and started my own shawl. This shawl is cast on at the top and knit downwards.
Rug hooking with Hope Wood Crafts. See, we are not just about knitting at these events.

There were beautiful soaps.
And lovely woven things.
Above and below are from Rose Whitehead Fiber Fabrications. Her website has some wonderful sheep shearing photos.

The gorgeous yarns above and below are from Good Karma Farm. Wonderful family owned business, great website.
German Angora rabbits from Barber's Bunnies.
Here's a stunning angora cape.
And angora yarns.
And felted bunnies!
Another wonderful fiber event!

Next week I will be speaking at the Seacoast Knitter's Guild in Rye, New Hampshire on Tuesday, October 26th, and in Attleboro Massachusetts Council on Aging on Wednesday the 27th.
-Kathy

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

My husband and I took a walk around the block yesterday morning, and he took these photos.



Here are photos he took on his walk the evening before:


He went to the neighboring town of Searsport and took these:


Here's downtown Searsport:This starkness is something I love about Maine.
And people decorate big time for all the holidays.

Searsport has a delightful library.

This last photo is a reminder of summer. Lucia Beach, in Rockland, Maine.

The weather has turned dark and stormy ("It was a dark and stormy night" will be the first sentence of my murder mystery, should I ever write one).

This weekend Knitting Out Loud will be at the University of Maine in Orono for the Fiber Maine-ia Conference. Lots of classes, lots of vendors!

Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival 2010!

It was a wonderful treat to meet Anita Figueras (aka scifiknitter on Ravelry) at the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival this year in Hemlock, New York. A blog reader! A great knitter! It was such fun talking with her. Anita had come to the Festival with her daughter, also a knitter, who is getting her Ph.d in Statistics. Thank you, again, for stopping by our booth, Anita. I look forward to seeing you next year.
I haven't resolved my camera problem, so these photos were taken by Kathleen Kearns, my friend and as it happens our web designer, who came along on this trip. Kathleen was a huge help, great fun, and she loved the fair. The photo above was taken in the out door area, where vendors set up tents. There is a knitting blog I follow, The Fairy Godknitter, the author of which I discovered upon returning home was also at this fair, with her two sons! I wish I had known, and hope to meet her next year.
Kathleen saw this wonderful Swedish stranded knitting bag above.
And this lovely shawl.
The sweater above won first prize.
There were just scads of great yarns, but I liked these from Crayon Box Designs.

A young man came to our booth, who was at the fair for the sheep dog trials. Last year he bought the audiobook The Art of Fair Isle Knitting, which is a history of Fair Isle knitting. He told me he listens to it every night before bed along with Seamus Heaney's Beowulf. I love Beowulf and include it in a literature program I do in the schools here in mid-coast Maine, so we had a long talk. This time he took A History of Hand Knitting and I look forward to talking with him next year.

Kathleen and I had a great time at this fair. It is in a gorgeous rural area of rolling hills and farms, just south of Rochester. We stayed overnight with a friend of Kathleen's, the garden writer Teri Chace, and her family in Little Falls, New York, picturesquely located on the Erie Canal, it is a charming town. Here is a link to an historic preservation group who is working on restoring an Italian Community Bake Oven!

Fall is my favorite season; turning leaves, pumpkins, crisp apples, harvest, wood stoves. Hope you are all enjoying it.
-Kathy