Here a group, there a group...

I was looking at the website of my hometown library one day and discovered that they have a knitting group that meets on Tuesdays. And since I only live 5 minutes away from there, I naturally had to check it out.

I walked in and the first person I saw was my mother's former landlady. Mary is also the great grandmother of my youngest sister's daughters. Now, I hope the great grandmother part doesn't give you visions of a doddering old lady. She is anything but! She is very active in many groups and is a fantastic painter The rest of the group (and there are a lot of them) is a mix of all ages. Wendy is probably in her late twenties/early thirties and drives a half hour to join in. She lived in Baltimore until this past June when she moved to the area. She lives out in the boonies and loves it. Several of the ladies know my mother. Another Mary (who wasn't there the first night I joined) kept looking at me and I finally heard her say to person sitting next to her "she looks like a Fay". I looked over at her, smiled, and said "That's because my mother was a Fay". She grew up with my mother and her sisters as did a couple of others. So it is a little like coming home to be in this group. And I really enjoy the conversations that flow around the table.

The knitting group at the library here is starting up tomorrow night. I would like to go but may have to stay home and pack. We are heading to Cape Cod on Saturday for our annual fall trip. So I'll have to see how much I have done. Knowing me, probably not enough. But I feel a little obligated to go. This group is not as well organized, not as well attended, and meets sporadically but I have been going since it began. So I'll go and see if it is going to be an active group.

Red Heart has a new yarn - McIntosh. It's a 70% acrylic, 30% wool blend and the colors are marled. I bought a skein of the Heather colorway at A.C. Moore and used it to make a pair of mittens. This picture is of one finished mitten and the second in progress.



The yarn is soft and thick feeling. I loved working with it and want to get more. There is 122 yards per skein and I had enough to finish the pair of mittens with a couple yards left over.


That's it for tonight and probably until after I get back from Cape Cod on Oct. 1st. Here is one more picture to enjoy. This is the North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. This is where the first battle of the Revolutionary War took place. We stopped for two nights in Massachusetts on our way back from Maine and went to Concord to visit the Minute Man National Park. If you like American History, it's well worth the trip.

Maine yarn shopping

While we were in Maine, we stopped at two yarn stores. The first was The Lilac Lily in Southwest Harbor which is south of Bar Harbor.



It is a whole house and has knitting supplies and yarn on the first floor and needlepoint canvases and supplies on the second floor. There is a wonderful selection of yarn. My purchases were two skeins of Wool in the Woods Star City wool in the Lottery colorway, a skein of Lamb's Pride Worsted in Blue Boy, and a copy of the Stained Glass Hat pattern by Green Mountain Spinnery.





Here's a close up of the Wool in the Woods colors. There are 200 yards per skein so I have 400 yards to play with. I think I may try the diagonal scarf pattern that is in the Morehouse Farms "Merino Knits" book.



The second yarn shop was Bee's Yarns right in Bar Harbor. I didn't have my camera that day so I didn't get a picture of the shop. There are so many wonderful yarns in this shop and what did I buy? Plymouth Yarn Encore Colorspun in a pretty gray/blue/white colorway and five skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted - Autumn Harvest, Clematis, Wild Oak, Misty Blue, and Raspberry. In my defense, I can't get either of these yarns anywhere near me. I did keep fondling the Malabrigo that is there but at $11.00 a skein, I didn't want to buy any without having a pattern in mind. The Lamb's Pride will hopefully be used in the Stained Glass pattern.



I also bought a pair of Inox size 6 (4 mm) needles at Bee's. Most US size 6 needles are 4.25 mm and the Sirdar baby patterns that I use call for 4 mm.

And that was my yarn shopping experience while in the state of Maine. I was really disappointed that we weren't closer to some of the wonderful yarn places such as Bartlett, Halcyon Yarns, Peace Fleece, etc. I could buy those yarns in the places I stopped but with Scott making grumbly noises about the amount of yarn I have, I restrained myself. I figure he loved it in Acadia Park so much that we will be going back and I'll get some then. Gotta always be thinking!!