Visiting family (and yarn stores) in Maine & Vermont

Hi All,
I’m just back from a 2 week vacation to Maine and Vermont to visit family. We had a good time catching up and visiting. The weather was nice (for that time of year), and the trees were beginning to turn color.
I also got to stop in 5 different yarn stores while there, so I thought I’d spread the word.
Brattleboro, VT (southern end of VT) Not just Yarn - a nice friendly store with a reasonable yarn selection. I stopped in while the Tuesday social group was there - a lively group of knitters. I bought some yarn to make my niece a pair of legwarmers.
Also in Brattleboro, Knit or Dye - a smaller yarn store, smaller selection. I bought a sock book - Favorite Socks.
Nearby Putney, VT is the home of Green Mountain Spinnery. It has a small store in the front of their spinnery selling their products. I didn’t buy anything because of my limited packing space and because I was only looking for sock yarn at that point. It did have some very nice yarn.
In Maine, the Yard Goods store in Waterville, ME is yarn overload for me. They have 2 storefronts with a inside door between them. One side is all fabrics and notions - I don’t shop on that side but they look to have a large selection. The other side is 3/4 yarn and 1/4 rubber stamp/scrapbook stuff. They have a very extensive selection of yarns. One section was all sock yarn, floor to ceiling and baskets on the floor. I bought sock yarn (Heritage by Cascade, Melody by Jojoland) and a very yummy Mulberry Merino by Plymouth Yarn Co. The staff here is very helpful. One year I was looking for baby yarn and didn’t see what I wanted on the shelf so they took me into their basement - yarn in plastic bags on shelves all over the place. I strongly recommend a visit here if you’re in the Maine area.
Then, last but not least - Halcyon Yarns in Bath, ME. This is a large store with yarn, roving, supplies for knitting, weaving, spinning, etc. They have a good selection of yarns including their own label. Due to lack of space in my suitcase, I only bought a skein of sock yarn to make socks for my mother. The store even had a gas burning wood stove - it made the space seem even more pleasant. If I’d been by myself I would have pulled up a chair and started knitting.
So - if you’re planning a trip to the East Coast, here’s a start for yarn stores to visit.
Marie

Yeah - I won three of Anne's patterns. :-)

Anne is such a generous person. I got a free copy of her Carmen Bolero pattern, plus two others yet to be determined. Now I have to find the right yarn in the Handicraft Cafe http://www.handicraftcafe.com/shop/
In other news:
My part-time, temporary job is over, so I'm taking it easy for the next month. Doing volunteer work (filing mostly) at the local Family Court Services office. I got the volunteer job through a knitting friend.
I'm slowly working on my knitting projects again - scarves, etc.
And spending way too much time on Facebook, Pogo, etc.

Anne's pattern contest - I really like the 'Carmen' pattern

Anne Kuo-Lukito is going wild with designing patterns. She's giving some away that are slightly stained due to a tea accident. Since I really like free stuff :-), I figured I'd post about her 'Carmen' pattern which I really like. It's a long sleeved bolero with a hood. Here's a link for the pattern in Ravelry - Carmen
and here's a link for the pattern on Anne's home page - Carmen
And yes - I do like to promote Anne's patterns since she's one of my friends.

Life is going well for me. I spent last Thursday at the fair with Renata - she had a deep-fried Twinkie and a deep-fried Oreo, and I ate three deep-fried Oreos. Sooo good! I want more!
I'm currently working part-time (20 hours/week) until the end of September. I'm also volunteering 3 hours a week at the Family Court Services where another friend works. Mostly filing - which is a nice change from tax work. :-)
Marie

Yarn swift, other news

1) My darling husband made me a yarn swift based on Anne Kuo-Lukito's pattern. Anne's swift
Of course, being an engineer, he made a couple of minor alterations - he used 2 CD's instead of 1, and we used a straw over the bolt to make the swift spin a little smoother. It's already been put to use on one of the huge skeins of yarn from a Newton's Yarn Sale. That's why I wanted one of these swifts. My little umbrella swift (a gift from my mother-in-law who found it at an estate sale) is great for small skeins of yarn. However, the Newton's skeins are abnormally large. This new swift is handling it with ease.
2) I'm spending Sunday at Disneyland since they let me in free on my birthday. I'll be 7! After a certain age, you can be creative with your age. Me - I add the 2 digits of my age together to get my new age.
3) Monday I start a part-time, temporary job - 20 hours/week for 3 months. It's with the company i worked for last year as a temporary. I didn't want to hire on with them due to the commute and the lack of decent restaurants in the area. I have not yet heard the real story of what happened to the person they hired to take on the job. The temporary agency said she'd taken 6 weeks of vacation (funny, she's been there less than 1 year and now is their busy time), the company person said she'd left the country. I'll find out the real story on Monday.
Have a Great Fourth of July!
Marie

WWKIP day - awesome!

Saturday, June 13th was World-Wide Knit in Public day. So, Renata and I hosted the 2nd annual picnic at El Dorado Park in Long Beach. It was a great day. We got there around 9:30am and set up the tables and pop-ups with help from Jamie and some others whose names I didn't get (sorry, I'm bad at names). We hung the All Things String banner between 2 trees, and our new banner - which has the WWKIP logo and 'All Things String' on it, from one of the pop-ups. We also had 2 folding signs that Renata designed and I helped make - we used them to point the way to our area.
There was a steady stream of people who started showing up - I think we ended up with over 40 people. Lots of goodies on the table. Denise W. brought her delicious cupcakes - I grabbed the first one.
We had a table set up for 'Free' yarn - anything people wanted to give away, and a table for 'Raffle Prizes'. Renata and I took some skeins from the Free table and moved them to the Raffle table - 4 skeins of Koigu, etc. :-) There were lots of goodies on the Free table - I limited myself to one skein of ribbon yarn in a blue/purple color. At the end of the day there was 1 bag of yarn left that will be passed on to Project Linus.
After the lunch, we had the Mystery Pattern Battle - started with 13 contestants, a few dropped out during the game due to wrong-size needles, yarn trouble, etc. The pattern was for a water-bottle cozy. I think most people had fun with it. We also had 2 spinning speed contests - one for wheels, one for drop spindle. And a speed crochet contest. Denise W. won the Mystery Pattern Battle as the first person finished, I called Gwen as the last one standing since we were running out of time and had to start the raffle.
Sabrina (the 13 year-old knitter) was one of the lucky raffle winners - one of the jugglers had a winning ticket and passed it to her. :-) She also won the fiber and lady-bug spindle - another person lured into spinning. :-)
Towards the end of the raffle, Margo arrived with 2 alpacas - Seven and his little sister. They were so cute.
We packed up and were home by 6:30. I spent the next day recovering. :-)
I got to wear my tiara all day, although I should have been wearing either my sun hat or more sunscreen.
Thanks to all who participated, and extra thanks to Jamie and Abraham for all their help, Melyssa and Su for the name tags and badge holders.
Here's a link to Jan's pictures.

Yarn Will

Another contest to enter! :-)
My Yarn Will is easy - I leave all my yarn, needles, etc. to Renata - leader of our All Things String group. She can take what she wants and divide the rest up among the group. If I ever get around to writing a real will, I'll try to remember to put that in. And also leave her a few bucks for the hassle of dealing with my stash. :-)
Happy knitting to you all!

Needles won - Yeah!

I entered a contest on Craft Gossip and won a set of 15 circular needles from . Yeah. I started my first project on them yesterday. I really like the cables on these needles - they're thicker than the normal cables, so when I'm doing a project on 2 circulars, I'm not overtightening the end stitches. I got the 30" set. They're bamboo and feel very nice in my hands.
Thanks to Linda for organizing the contest. New needles for free - yeah!!!