Knitting Out Loud

October Indoor Flowers

2011-10-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

Our friend Gregory Dunham (whose gorgeous watercolors of Maine you can see at http://gregorydunham.com) gave me the orchid pictured above, which is now gloriously in bloom. Thank you, Gregory!
This blue streptocarpus was given to my by my cousin Sue, who grew it from seed. Thank you Sue!
The geraniums I bought as porch plants for the summer. But geraniums will often bloom all winter long too.
A little fuzzy, but you can see the lavender, rosemary and woodpile quite clearly.
The phalaenopsis above was a present from my wonderful mother. I just moved it to the bathroom, where it is enjoying the mist from showers. Thank you, Mom!
Here's the Gregory Dunham orchid again. Not sure what kind it is.

Knitting Out Loud will be at RHINEBECK this coming weekend!!! Come see us (me and the delightful and always amusing Karen Jelenfy) at booth #26-9.

Happy fall!
-Kathy

In the Garden, June and July

2011-07-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

June. Papaver orientale 'Helen Elisabeth'. I planted this one and gave my friend Kathleen the other one. Our daughters, Helen and Elisabeth, have been friends since birth.
Lupines plant themselves.
The daylily, Hemerocallis, comes from Asia. I love H. lilioasphodelus, the Lemon Lily, which has a sweet scent.
The blue irises also have a sweet scent. My dear neighbor Bettie, who passed away many years ago, gave me these from her garden.

Iris siberica and Rosa rugosa, also both Asian imports.

Bistorta.

July in the garden. More daylilies. I love these orange ones. You see them blooming by the roadside all over Maine.

Monarda or bee balm, a North American native, Echinops (globe thistle, native to Europe and central Asia) and hollyhock (Alcea, another import from Asia).

I grow antique roses, mostly from the nineteenth century. Roses that Napolean's wife Josephine would have grown. Also known as Old Garden Roses.
Belle Isis. Rene d'Anjou.
Konigin von Danemark.

Duchess de Montebello.

Stanwell Perpetual.

Happy July everyone!
-Kathy

Penobscot Marine Museum and Acadia Fiber Faire 2011

2011-06-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago was the very wonderful Maine Fiber Frolic in Windsor, Maine, and I hope you all were there. On Saturday of the fair my husband and daughter manned the Knitting Out Loud booth and on Sunday my dear friend, road trip buddy and all around life-saver Karen Jelenfy left Village Books (in the hands of her daughter and my daughter and her blacksmith husband Jeff) to man the booth. Thank you all of you!!!

I was here that weekend,
at the Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, Maine, in the Fowler True Ross House (the "ell" of which is pictured above) giving people guided tours. The ell shown above is the original part of the house, built sometime between 1801 and 1815. It was built as a two room house with a central chimney. Seven children were raised in those two rooms. Miles and Jane Fowler bought the house in 1815 and raised their four children in the two rooms.

Below is the fireplace over which their meals were cooked.
Ship building was big business in coastal Maine in the 19th century. During the 19th century Searsport built over two hundred sailing vessels and provided ten percent of America's deep water ship captains.

By 1837 Miles Fowler had made enough money to build a grand seven room Federal style house attached to the original house.
Above is the master bedroom with a fancy water basin.

Below is a shadow box of a ship in the children's bedroom.

Dolls furniture below.
Below is the Captain's study. The chairs are from Burma.

The painting below is by Dolly Smith (1824-1891) of a ship captain's daughter.

And here are my photographs from the Acadia Fiber Fair which was on May 21st (but I'm not behind with anything!). This the adorable daughter of a family friend whom we took with us on summer vacations to Vinalhaven when she was a child. You can see she is a knitter.

Finnish born sculptor Melita Westerlund-Brecher was at this event with a stunning sweater.
This sweater was made without a pattern out of odds and ends, says Melita.

We are having a fabulous summer here in Maine! The gardens are lush, the air is sweet, the sky is a gorgeous blue. Photos of the garden are coming...
-Kathy

New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival 2011

2011-05-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

Spinning from the rabbit! See the live rabbit on the spinners lap?
Gorgeous live bunnies above, lovely knitted bunnies (knitted with bunny yarn) below.
And hats knitted with rabbit yarn.
The booth across from me was the New England Border Collie Rescue.
You can find alpacas, alpaca yarn and maple sugar at Sweet Maple Alpacas.

Grace and Miss Mouse Soaps, above and below. Very sweet display.

There were a group of farms and small yarn producers who had several booths together.
They had beautiful hats for sale.
Lovely inlaid wooden boxes and nice yarn.
These gorgeous quilts were part of their display.

Here's more of their yarn.
A hand-knit sweater for sale. Wonderful colors!
More yarn in lovely rustic colors.

The charming guy below was in our barn.
Along with rug hooking and spinning
Wooly Beers yarns and Knits of Durham, NH.

Another cutie!
Wonderful felted animals.

Spinners' Warren of Acton, Maine was our neighbor again.
Sheep dog puppy!
Shorn sheep.
Have you heard of fainting goats? The Wonder Fall Farm has them. Check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO2P5Vw05ZA
More sheep, I love the sheep!

Alpacas. We heard them hum. Quite the noise.

Adorable goats.

Here are the youth sheep events. It's wonderful to see young people with their animals.

My husband took this lace photo.
And this baby.

My husband came with me on this trip and we stayed with our friends in Derry, Stape (painting buddy of Scott's) and Kathleen Kearns (Kathleen is my web designer). You can see that the yarn bomb which Karen Jelenfy put on their lampost a year ago is still there.
Happy spring!
Kathy

Connecticut Sheep and Wool Festival 2011

2011-05-09T03:39:00.000-07:00

Hand-dyed roving from Purple Fleece! Debbie nearly sold out of this beautiful roving and has been very busy this week dying more for the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival, where we will both be next weekend, May 14 and 15.

My husband (who had just returned from a five week painting trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas, and skirted wild fires and tornadoes on the drive home) and I went to the 102nd Annual Connecticut Sheep, Wool and Fiber Festival last weekend. On the way down and on the way back we stopped at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts to visit our daughter (we went to a magnificent garden, about which I will make a separate post). On our way home we also visited the Old North Bridge (of shot heard round the world fame) and Old Manse (where Nathaniel Hawthorne and his delightful wife Sophia, among others, lived) in Concord. I'll also make a separate post about this.

Below are spinning wheels from Purple Fleece. Spinning is hot these days, and Debbie sold several of these during the Festival.

One of my favorite things to watch are the sheep dog trials.

Another wonderful thing to see at sheep and wool festivals are the baby animals. Who could resist a baby goat? Last year I saw a sheep in the back seat of a small sedan. Must have been an impulse purchase.

It was a glorious day.

The New England Lace Group always has demonstrations at this Festival.

This year one of the lace-makers explained to me that although lace making looks complicated, you are only working with a few (I think she said 3 or 4) bobbins at a time.
Her bobbins were beautifully painted.

Oh, such gorgeous yarn at the Festival!
The gray yarn above in Angora rabbit from Honeybuns Rabbitry and Apiary in Lyndeborough, New Hampshire.
More roving.
I love maple syrup.

Gorgeous yarns from Jan Marek Raczkowski. Jan will also be at NH Sheep and Wool.

Ball and Skein, above, was also my neighbor at SPA, Knit and Spin (organized by the New England Textile Arts Network) in Freeport, Maine last February.

Lovely needle cases above from Crippen Works.

Above is the Pick-Up Stitch tool, for which there is a video on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmTLhg8SNcs.

For a complete listing of vendors, go to the CT Sheep and Wool website.

Also, don't forget about the Pleasant Mountain Fiber Arts Workshops in Denmark, Maine June 17-19.

Come see Knitting Out Loud at the NH Sheep and Wool Festiva l this coming weekend! If you miss us there, we will be at the Acadia Fiber Faire on May 21st, along with Purple Fleece and Village Books (with a great selection of fiber books!).

-Kathy

ARCTIC LACE!

2011-04-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

Knitting Out Loud is proud to release our fifteenth audiobook, ARCTIC LACE! This wonderful audiobook is beautifully and lovingly read by its accomplished author Donna Druchunas, who was an absolute delight to work with.

ARCTIC LACE is the story of Donna's personal quest for the mysterious luxury yarn qiviut and the elusive Native Alaskan women who knit it into gorgeous lace patterns. Donna tells the moving stories of the women of the Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers’ Co-operative (do check out their great website, one look will make you smile) in Anchorage, stories reflecting their courage and determination to maintain and honor a traditional culture in the midst of contemporary pressures. We learn about the rare Musk Ox from which qiviut comes, and hear remarkable stories of the daring first European explorers to traverse Alaska’s inhospitable terrain.

Donna Druchunas is the author of Successful Lace Knitting, Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland, Kitty Knits and The Knitted Rug. She designs knits for Family Circle Easy Knitting, Interweave Knits, Knitter’s, PieceWork and several yarn companies.

Join Donna this fall on her Canada & New England Knitting Cruise! I can't imagine anything more fun! It is a nine day cruise which stops, among other exciting places, in Bar Harbor, Maine, one of the most beautiful spots on earth.

My garden here in Maine is just stirring to life. Below are Squill, or Scilla, which I dug up from the side of the road in Blue Hill (so I think of them as Blue Hill Squill) at the prompting, or rather bullying, of my delightful plant thieving neighbor Bettie Thornton (Bettie passed away some years ago, but she could out dig, out garden me right up to the end and I miss her very much). You can see that the Squill have naturalized in the grass.

My hellebore!
This is cheating, a photo from last year, but the Jeanne d'Arc crocus are blooming.
Muscari are my favorites.
What I especially admire about Donna Druchunas is her interest in and commitment to folk, or ethnic knitting. She brings this sensitivity and love to ARCTIC LACE.

Happy spring! Odd how it always seems like a new and fresh miracle every year.
-Kathy

New Hampshire Spinners and Dyers Guild 2011

2011-04-10T16:28:00.001-07:00

It was my very great pleasure to speak at the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Spinners and Dyers Guild today. Last October I spoke in New Hampshire to the Seacoast Knitters, and the lovely Harriet Bailey arranged for me to do the talk again today for the NHSDG. The meeting was at the Epsom, New Hampshire Fire Station which has a beautiful hall on its second floor. I love New England.

I had driven to New Hampshire yesterday (it is a four hour drive so not practical as a one-day trip) and spent the night with my friend Kathleen Kearns (she designed my website and is currently working at M.I.T. I have known Kathleen for twenty years, our daughters are best friends - my daughter did the drawings on Kathleen's website - and our husbands, both painters, are currently painting together in Texas) which was a great treat.

Today was stunning, as only a warm sunny spring day in New England can be after a long snowy winter. We were all euphoric. Harriet Bailey met my car and insisted on helping me carry things in, and as she is a tiny bit older than I we quarreled for a minute over this and then I gave in. She is an inspiration.
The ladies were wonderful.
Judith Bastianelli showed me a Corsican spinning technique, which I am guessing must be thousands of years old. She learned of this method of spinning with well, a twig, then saw it again on the island of Corsica.
Below are Ruth Stevens and Judith Bastianelli in their lovely hand-knits.

I am sorry I didn't get the name of the lady below, but her beautiful sweater is all her own hand-spun! *I have just received her name: Judy Gauthier.
Gorgeous Ashford wheel.

Fran Emory is on the left, and I did not get her friend's name (so sorry!). Look at their wonderful hand-knits! *I have just received her name: Susan Burns.
Below is Fran Emory in a vest she designed and knit based on...
these buttons!

People brought their fiber in lovely baskets.
This is a gorgeous Canadian spinning wheel designed for production spinning, Harriet Bailey informed me.
Beautiful metal foot pedal!

I am back home now and it is 8:30 pm. I stopped at the new Trader Joe's in Portland on the way home and bought coffee, wine, figs and olive oil. Listened to a 1940's Sherlock Holmes radio theater with Basil Rathbone in the car. May watch a little Perry Mason before I turn in. Tomorrow I will work on Macbeth, Tudors, Borgias, Medicis etc for Senior College, and on taxes for the government.
-Kathy

Teapots

2011-04-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

"You can never have too many eagles," Jason Robards says in the wonderful movie A Thousand Clowns. Can you also never have too many teapots? Looking around my kitchen the other day I was thinking that I possibly just might.

I can't quite remember where the charming big-bellied number pictured above came from. It has a 1930's look to it, but doesn't pour well. It says "U.S.A." on the bottom, which was a way to let buyers know, right after WWII, that it wasn't "made in Japan".

My husband painted one of my teapots, was it for an exhibit? What's wrong with my aging brain? My husband and his painting buddy Stapleton Kearns are on their way to paint in Texas for a few weeks, so I can't ask him.

When I moved to Maine twenty-three years ago, one of my first exploratory trips was to the gorgeous town of Blue Hill. I discovered a pottery shop called Rowantrees. The pottery was made on the premises with Maine clay. It was founded in 1934 by a woman who had been to India and met Gandhi. When she asked Gandhi what she could do for the people of Blue Hill, he told her to start a pottery. So back she went to Blue Hill and started Rowantrees. The White House has a set of Rowantrees dinnerware, bought by the Eisenhower's. The designs are charming, but the pottery closed last year. Still, that's a pretty long run. Andrew Phelan, the son of one of the potters who worked there, wrote a history of it Following the Brick Path: The Story of Rowantrees Pottery.

There is a wonderful English teapot called a "Brown Betty" which this is not, but I have seen the same design in a British movie. Either a Miss Marple mystery or The Secret of Roan Inish, I think.
This is a plain, inexpensive, "made in Japan" or perhaps China, teapot, but I love it and use it often. If I am home, I drink a pot of tea in the afternoon. There are people who don't like hot liquids. I don't like cold liquids.

The interior basket is perfect for Lapsang Souchong.

My wonderful aunt, who passed away last year, bought this very silly teapot for me on the sly after I laughed at it in a store in California.

My friend Sally gave me this delightful art deco number. It says "coorsite No. 920" on the bottom, which means it was made by the H.F. Coors Pottery.

I have never made tea in this silver German teapot inherited from my grandparents. It belonged to my great-grandmother. My grandparents fled Germany before World War II and I am not sure how this teapot came to be in America. Like most immigrants they arrived in this country with nothing. My grandmother was very modern. She was a Freudian psychoanalyst and loved Danish modern design and modern art. I never saw her use this teapot.

I found this French teapot at Village Books in Washington, Maine and fell in love with it.

The teapot below was given to me by my mother. It is a from a child's tea set and has the phoenix design on it.
This is a very large teapot from my father, handmade by a potter in the Northwest.

I believe this is Japanese. There is a word for the type of unglazed pottery this is, but I can't find it right this minute an the web.

Here is another unglazed Japanese pot.

I have never made tea in either of those beauties above. But the one below I use all the time.

Arthritis in my thumbs has kept me from knitting for awhile. It seems better now, so I will pick up the needles again soon.

Also, I just began teaching a course on Shakespeare and the Renaissance at the Senior College in Belfast, Maine. I LOVE it!

Hope to see some of you on Saturday, April 30th at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool Festival!
- Kathy

March 2011

2011-03-06T14:12:00.001-08:00

This is the garden during our last snowstorm.
Fortunately many houseplants are flowering.

Orchids.
Amaryllis.
Geraniums.

Cyclamen.
And branches of forsythia from the garden.

My husband is making me another spinning wheel.

He likes to make things.

This is a trebuchet he made for a Medieval Literature class I do with children. It fires corks across a classroom.

Oxalis.

We had rain today and LOTS of snow melted. So now there is just a tiny bit of ice left in the driveway.

Spring is in the air!
-Kathy

NETA SPA Knit & Spin 2011!

2011-02-27T13:08:00.001-08:00

The New England Textile Arts Network's annual SPA Knit & Spin was a blast. It always is. The weather often does odd things (unlike us knitters!) and this year we arrived in a blizzard which left a winter wonderland foot of snow in Freeport, Maine. SPA was still packed. We New England knitters are a hardy and devoted bunch.
This amazing scarf is, I was told, a pattern from the book Socks, Socks, Socks.
The lovely, the special thing about SPA, is that it is just a gathering. Just a chance to knit and spin with each other around the fire drinking wine. Yes, we vendors are there. And I think we add to the fun. But it is pretty amazing to see a hotel lobby, actually three hotel lobbies - the SPA is spread out over three hotels - FULL of yarn, spinning wheels and looms. Which I didn't photograph, so you will have to imagine.
We were next to the delightful Judy of Ball and Skein. She has yummy hand-dyed yarns and roving in scrumptious colors.
Below is a sample shawl knit with her yarn.
And gorgeous sweaters (which I believe are designed by Ellen, see more of her below) knit with gorgeous Ball and Skein yarn.

This lady is wearing the Portugese Fisherwoman's Shawl
My other vendor neighbor was the delightful Beverly of Shipyard Point Glassworks. She had a beautiful array of beads, buttons, stitch markers, earrings, knitting needles and more. Which my photos don't do justice to, but her website does.

Pictured above is Julia Farwell-Clay, wearing her own stunning sweater design! And a creature from Mountain Fiber Folk.
The hand-knits people were wearing just knocked my socks off.
Below is Dave of The Merlin Tree. You can't see his cute kilt. But you can see his spinning wheels. He also repairs antique wheels.
Look at all the hand-knits!
Below are yarns from The Woolen Rabbit.
And a very lovely shawl knitted with their yarn.
And here is Good Karma Farm's yarn tree! Beautiful!
Below is Springtide Farm's delicious cashmere yarn knitted into hats.

Victoria and Albert were brought by Linda Whiting who runs the Pleasant Mountain Fiber Arts Workshops in June in Denmark, Maine. Linda and Beth Collins are SPA regulars and were in Freeport this year, and knitting, despite having had debilitating strokes.
The afghan below was raffled off to support (oops, where are my notes?) Afghans for Afghans (I think).
Another gorgeous hand-knit.

This is the lovely Michelle of Three Bags Full. Photos of her charming bags are coming up below.

The sweater above is Karen's friend's Toni's, but she didn't want her head in the photo. It's a very cute head so I'm not sure why.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is an Alice Starmore coat.
It took two years to knit. The knitter told me that she was in the car at one point for a ten hour stretch and she knit three inches of the sleeve. It is a pattern, she says, which requires unremitting attention.
But worth it, I'd say.
The lady below has yarn in her hair. Or kind of as her hair.

More amazing lace shawls.
Amazing!

Wonderful!

And here are Michelle's adorable project bags. Three Bags Full.

Good Karma Farm sold out of their (forgive me, I just started spinning, are they called "bats"?) bats.
Deborah, below, of Five Sheep and a Donkey, and I are often at the same events together. My daughter loves the nightshirt I bought for her from Deborah.

Starcroft Fiber! What could be more romantic than yarn from Maine island sheep?
Look how beautifully this yarn knits up!

My dear friend and companion at these events, Karen Jelenfy, is spinning away. Karen's wonderful bookstore, Village Books in Washington, Maine will re-open for the season in April with Karen's own hand-spun, hand-dyed yarn from Maine sheep!
Judy, of Ball and Skein, was spinning with this lovely drop spindle in between helping her customers. And Beverly knit this gorgeous cashmere hat and added beautiful beads from Shipyard Point Glassworks. Beverly's two delighful teenage children helped her at this event. Teenagers are great, my house used to be full of them and I miss my daughter (at the same time I am so happy that she is off at college and loving it!).
The delightful Mary Jane Mucklestone was at SPA wearing her gorgeous designs.
Check out her blog for more wonderful designs!
Mary Jane will be the Artist in Residence at Fiber College this year!

This is the charming Ellen, a knitwear designer and friend of Mary Jane. You can see her wonderful designs on her blog, Odacier.

Saturday evening we went to the Fiber College party and found more great hand-knits!

NETA SPA is a great event!!!
And now we are back home. And it is snowing again.
-Kathy

Knitting for Peace is released on audio!

2011-02-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

Yes, Knitting for Peace is now on audio! Beautifully read by author Betty Christiansen. Now you can listen to these extraordinary stories of knitters who are determined to use their skills to bring help, joy, love and comfort to people at home and in countries around the world.

“We knitters work a powerful magic when we knit for others,” says Betty Christiansen. “I discovered that knitting was helping people all over the world in amazing ways. I hope you will be as inspired by these groups and as filled with hope as I have been while researching and writing this book.”

It was a great pleasure to work with Betty on this lovely recording. We at Knitting Out Loud are thrilled to be able to bring these wonderful stories to you on audio.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this audiobook will be donated to help women survivors of war at www.womenforwomen.org.

Enjoy and be inspired!
-Kathy

Heaven: the Newport Spin-In, 2011

2011-02-13T05:58:00.000-08:00

There might not be anything more satisfying than being in a room full of spinners.
Yesterday the Ewe Spinners hosted a day of spinning in Newport, Maine. I went as a vendor, but brought my new spinning wheel, the one my husband just made for me (see previous post). And I learned to spin. Yes, the miracle happened. Amazing. I am now a spinner. Not a good spinner, but a spinner nonetheless.
There was (and often is at fiber events) a used equipment sale table.
And the charming vendor next to me had gorgeous fleece from her Shetland sheep and these cards for sale. They were her drawings of Maine barns. But I didn't get her name (help me here Karen, Toni and Cindy - didn't you guys by fleece from her?).
This sweater is knit from hand-spun yarn which is 15% angora.

There were several men spinning.
Gorgeous hand-spun (from Maine sheep) and hand-dyed yarn from Random Roving, available from Village Books.

Luscious hand-dyed roving from Purple Fleece.

Christine Macchi of the non-profit fiber advocacy group Maine Fiberarts was there. Maine Fiberarts has a beautiful visitors center in Topsham, Maine which includes a gallery, reference library and fiber arts slide collection. They also have a great email newsletter of state wide fiber events.

Karen Jelenfy of Village Books wore her "believe in fiction" tee shirt.
Another gorgeous hand-knit!

More wheels.

Astrig Tanguay of Searport's Fiber College had amazing hand-knit socks on. Fiber College (Sept. 8-11, 2011) will have Beth Brown-Reinsel as one of their many wonderful teachers this year.

Lovely cuffs!
More wheels...

Here's Debbie Bergman, of Purple Fleece, with her drop spindle. Debbie stood by me and my spinning wheel, gently instructing me, as I awkwardly started again and again, until I finally did it. Became a spinner. Karen Jelenfy, my spinning buddy, cheered me on. I couldn't have done it without either of you. Thank you!

Astrig's Rose spinning wheel. In memory of her mother, Rose. What could be a nicer.

Then finally we had to pack up to leave.
Some of us (not I) had amazing carrying cases for their wheels.

What a day! Happy spinning, everyone!
Kathy

Spinning on a home-made wheel

2011-01-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

First, you get the book. The Complete Spinning Book by Candace Crockett has easy instructions for making your own spinning wheel.
Then you get a cat. Are there spinners without cats? Then you get someone who likes to take on wood-working projects. In this case my husband, who happily leapt into this project. Then you wait. And life goes by, your daughter goes off to college. And then one day you have a spinning wheel! Then you need to find a spinner to try it out for you.
My friends Karen Jelenfy (of Village Books fame, who is a spinner and dyer of Maine yarn) and Debbie Bergman at Purple Fleece kindly gave the wheel its inaugural spin. Karen tried out the wheel at my house then we took it across the street to Debbie for fine tuning. The flyer had stopped turning, Debbie oiled all the joints which solved several problems.

Then, you need to learn to spin yourself.
Which I managed to sort of do!!! A miracle!!!

And now I have a spinning wheel, and can (sort of) spin.

And this is right across the street.

I will be a vendor at the Maine Spinner Registry's Newport Spin-In on Saturday, February 19th, and will bring this home-made wheel out for a test drive.
-Kathy

Snow storm, audiobook news, upcoming events

2011-01-12T08:23:00.001-08:00

Tibbs is watching the snow.

The blizzard which is hitting New England today arrived in our part of mid-coast Maine around 8am this morning as I was driving back from the hospital with my mother who had cataract surgery at 7am.

One of the pre-op questions they asked my elderly mother was whether she had any tattoos or body piercings.

The predictions range from 4 to 12 inches. We already have 5 inches. This is perfect knitting weather. (But I have a pain at the base of my thumb. Have any of you had this? I assume it will go away soon?)

Our woodpile is in the front, covered with a green tarp. Then raspberries, forsythia and an old apple tree on the left, pear trees on the right, my flower garden is beyond.

Given to me by a friend, I am not sure but think this is a Cattleya. The orchid behind it is about to bloom too. It is lovely (well, kind of essential) to have an indoor garden during the long Maine winter.

The snow is gorgeous. It is wonderful to sit in front of the wood stove, ours has a glass front, on a snowy day.

Audiobook news!

South Wind Through the Kitchen received a great review, and is "Editor's Pick of the Month" at SoundCommentary.com this January! Retired librarian reviewer Jean Palmer says, "This audiobook will bring joy and laughter to anyone listening to it".

Wild Fibers: Five Years of Favorites was on Audible.com's Bestsellers List for the week of December 22, 2010!

Coming up:

Saturday, January 15th, 10am
"Stories of Knitting" talk
Ellsworth Public Library
Ellsworth, Maine

Saturday, February 12th, 10-3
visit our vendor booth!
Newport Spin-In (Maine Spinners Registry)
Newport Elementary School
Newport, Maine

Friday - Sunday, February 26 - 28
visit our vendor booth!
NETA Spa Knit & Spin
Freeport, Maine

Tuesday, March 8th, 7pm
"Stories of Cooking, Gardening and Knitting" talk
Belfast Free Library
Belfast, Maine

See EVENTS page on the website for more information. See you there!
- Kathy

Around the house, December 2010

2010-12-29T05:46:00.000-08:00

It's fun to see inside people's homes on their blogs. It's most fun when the blogger is a good photographer, which I am not, but I thought I'd putter around the house and throw up some photos anyway. The embroidery above is Ukrainian. It was made by the mother of a friend of mine who was born in Ukraine. It is a long table runner, and I am very grateful to have it. It makes me happy, but more than that, it reminds me how important the "small" things in life are.
I have orchids, this one was given to me by a friend. The bloom is spectacular. So nice when the temperatures outside are below freezing.
Our daughter is home from her first year in art school. The painting on the left is a copy of Edouard Manet's The Fifer, which she made in Painting 101. We liked it so much we framed it. The painting on the left is by our friend Stapleton Kearns.
This is a pillow my mother-in-law made for us celebrating our marriage. Needlepoint. The plaid throw we bought in Scotland. I love plaid, my favorite plaid is the modern reconstruction of the Thorsberg Mantle (circa 200 A.D.) on page 67 of "Textiles, 5000 Years".
Our kitchen gods.
Yes! A sink full of dirty dishes! Our dishwasher has been broken since right after Christmas (so nice of it to wait). Doing dishes is not bad actually, especially when your daughter stands next to you and dries and you have a nice cozy chat right out of Prairie Home Companion. But the point here is the plate, which she decorated when she was perhaps four.
We love this redware pottery, made in Maine by Henderson's Redware. We bought this plate at Maine's Common Ground Fair, a wonderful country fair.
Knitting Out Loud narrator Melissa Hughes, who did such a lovely job on A History of Hand Knitting and The Art of Fair Isle Knitting, spends the winter in London and I babysit for her amazing begonia.
Our house is stuffed with books.
My grandparents blue and white china on the right, and my great grandmother's gold rimmed china.
Dining room rug. Okay, this is silly.
Clock we inherited from my husband's mother's family.
This painting I found at Goodwill for seven dollars. Sicily? Corsica?
Bits of stash.
Clivia.
Hand knits in our basket of hats and outdoor gear by the door.
A painting by our friend Cathy Melio.
Our daughter.
This delightful primitive, painted by a friend, reminds us of our long gone cat Hodge. He was a character.
This painting was in the dining room of my grandparents' apartment in New York. They loved modern art.
These amazing books were given to me by a friend who used them in her youth. They are interesting in terms of the history of education in this country. I just pulled one of these off the shelf. They re meant for elementary school age students. The table of contents begins: Mr.Pickwick and Sam Weller by Charles Dickens, The Death of Caesar by Plutarch, The Death of Caesar by Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, Life of Johnson by James Boswell, The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allen Poe, Abraham Lincoln by Theodore Roosevelt, Of Expense by Sir Francis Bacon, Ode On a Grecian Urn by John Keats, and on. Published 1913.
Modern Italian faience plate.
This was a baby blanket crotcheted by a friend for our daughter. It now resides on a stool.
A shelf of my gardening library. Vita Sackville-West is my favorite garden writer. Then Katharine White, with her wonderful Onward and Upward in the Garden, written about her garden in Maine.

It's an old house and I love it.

Best wishes to everyone for 2011!

Williamsburg, Virginia

2010-12-22T14:26:00.001-08:00

My husband goes to Charleston, South Carolina once a year on business. This November he stopped at Williamsburg, Virginia on his way home.
And took pictures of sheep for me.
Williamsburg has a rare breeds program.
Is this a Leicester Longwool sheep?
The streets are charming.

Look at this brickwork!

My husband's fellow painter Stapleton Kearns standing on the lovely brick sidewalk.

Inside the apothecary's.

The stages of a coin silver spoon.
The forge.

The armory.

Spinning and weaving.

Beautiful 18th century gardens!

Best wishes for the holidays to you all. Peace and joy. Quiet and contentment. Knitting happiness. Family love. Faith and hope. Good health. Good friends. Belief in the goodness of the future. Charity. Forgiveness. Gratitude. A good garden. Captivating books. Intriguing color, light, life.
-Kathy

Holiday 2 for 1 Sale!

2010-12-02T03:36:00.000-08:00

During the month of December, Out Loud Audiobooks has its famous 2 for 1 sale.

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones

Green Mountain Fiber Fest 2010!

2010-11-29T14:08:00.001-08:00

The Green Mountain Fiber Festival I attended in White River Junction, Vermont the weekend before last was WONDERFUL. Just look at the stunning shawl above! And this area of Vermont is gorgeous. The Billings Farm and Museum is nearby, as is the King Arthur Flour store and Grand View Farm (where you can have a 'farm vacation").
There were wonderful vendors!
The baskets above (Abenaki style) were hand made by Michael and Gisele McHarg in South Royalton, Vermont. They also run a bagpipe school, The Wee Piper. This warmed my heart.
They made the Van Gogh hooked rug above, too.
And the dolls above.
These gorgeous designs, above and below, are by Donna Kay.

Wonderful yarns by local farms...including Gilead Goats, and Snowshoe Farm.

Spinning wheels were set up beside the fireplace.
The Merlin Tree was there.

And cute angora rabbits.
My friend and neighbor Debbie Bergman of Purple Fleece with her glorious new hand-dyed roving.

Merit Scotford was making, and teaching about, Dorset Buttons. They were marvelous!

One of Purple Fleece's very first fans of her hand-painted roving spun and knit a pair of fingerless mits for Debbie!
Below are the ladies spinning around the fire.

There is Debbie teaching drop spindle.
And of course men spin too.
My poor camera took this photo of the Hotel Coolidge in White River Junction which hosted this event. It is a lovely hotel with grand rooms fireplaces galore.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! My husband made dinner for twenty people, including our daughter who was home from college for the first time, and a good time was had by all.

One of the wonderful things about knitting is how slow it is. And as we speed head-long into the magic of Christmas and Hanukkah, knitting is especially, well, relevant. It reminds us that we are lucky to live in a time when we don't have to make all the clothes for our families. And it reminds us to slow down and enjoy our friends and families who, after all, make this life worth living.
-Kathy

Fiber Festival of New England 2010!

2010-11-08T12:29:00.001-08:00

Last weekend my travel buddy Karen (of Village Books, Washington, Maine) and I went to West Springfield, Massachusetts for the VERY FIRST Fiber Festival of New England.

I'd never seen a real life Kafe Fassett before.
To celebrate this event I bought a video camera from the son of a friend, and will post a video of the festival just as soon as I can figure out how to download, post, etc. Meanwhile here are some still photos, which since I neglected to bring the real camera, are not so hot. But better than nothing. And that Fassett coat was totally amazing.
Barlett Yarns from Harmony, Maine was there.
A weaving guild.
Designer knitwear.

And here is knit wear designer and author Candace Eisner Strick and her husband. Candace wrote Sweaters From a New England Village and Sweaters From New England Sheep Farms.
A gorgeous vest!
Beautiful gansey.
Stunning! These photos don't do the knitting justice.
I also met sheep shearer Andy Rice, who has a delightful video of sheep shearing on YouTube called The Sheep Shearer. And he told me about the amazing Temple Grandin, a woman born with autism who is now a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.

"The things I wonder about most are not on the internet," said Sam Shepard, according to the Writer's Almanac which I listened to the day I drove down to Massachusetts to set up our booth. Is this not true for all of us?

But the internet is fun. I have been traveling so much this fall, and madly catching up when home, that I have not had time to follow some favorite knitting blogs: The Knitting Blog By Mr. Puffy the Dog, t does wool, raining sheep, The Fairy Godknitter, The Foothill Home Companion, among others. Funny, moving, gorgeous, these wonderful ladies write amazing blogs.

My husband tells a Knock Knock joke which goes:
Knock knock: Who's there?
Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass
But I heard The Secret Agent by Philip Glass on the radio and it is magnificent. See what you think.

Next week we are off to The Green Mountain Fiber Festival, November 20th and 21st, in White River Junction, Vermont! If you sign up for my class "Stories of Knitting" you receive a free audiobook. Kind of a bribe. On our way home we get to pick up our daughter (who is in her first year of college and much missed) and bring her back for Thanksgiving.
-Kathy

YouTube review

2010-11-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a review of the audiobooks Art of Fair Isle Knitting
and A History of Hand Knitting on YouTube!

Here's an interesting post from knittingbrow's blog on buying yarn at Colonial Williamsburg.

I'm madly getting ready for the The Fiber Festival of New England this coming weekend November 6th and 7th at The Big E in Springfield, Massachusetts. See you there!

Fiber Maine-ia 2010!

2010-10-19T13:00:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-15T05:22:00.001-07:00

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!

2010-10-04T15:04:00.001-07:00

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

Common Ground Fair 2010!

2010-09-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

Yarn first (my husband took these photos and I am not sure whose yarn it is - I know it is sideways but am not sure how to turn it), isn't it lovely!

Second, a note to Anita Figueras (aka scifiknitter): there was a technical glitch and the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival photos will go up next week. It was wonderful to meet you and your daughter! Thank you for stopping by our booth.

Last weekend was Maine's Common Ground Fair. This is the Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association annual fair, and it attracts 60,000 people over the three days. It is a fantastic fair, a wonderful harvest and country craft celebration.

My husband came with me to help out at the Knitting Out Loud (and now also Cooking Out Loud!) booth, and he took photos for me.

Here's Debbie Bergman at the Purple Fleece booth (it was chilly Friday and Sunday and hot on Saturday, that's Maine weather for you). Debbie had her famous, gorgeous, hand-dyed yarns at her booth, and I believe she had sold out of spinning wheels by the end of the Fair. Spinning is big at this Fair.

Debbie is standing with Karen Jelenfy (Karen, of Village Books, is my booth buddy on Knitting Out Loud trips). Karen's husband Jeff Jelenfy did a blacksmithing demonstration at the Fair on Saturday.
Adorable goat cart!

This goat was responding to voice commands given by a woman walking ahead of it.

Donkeys
Ponies
Several years ago my husband and I almost bought a baby donkey at this fair, until we snapped back to our senses.
The lady driving the buggy for this draft horse competition is wearing 19th century dress.

I love vegetable gardens, and the demonstration gardens run by MOFGA are wonderful.

Bare back on their draft horses.

That very green stuff below is Japanese millet. If you are a Kurosawa fan you will remember that in the film Seven Samurai the villagers ate millet and gave their rice to the samurai.
Our dream is to someday have a hive or two of bees. We will get one of these top bar hive boxes from Gold Star Honeybees in Bath, Maine. It is the only way to go.

Organic vegetables for sale. We bought leeks and garlic.

Tomatoes growing inside one of their greenhouses.

Hewing timbers for timber-framed structure demonstration.
A hobbit house for sale!
Shorn alpaca.
The famous Wednesday Spinners of Maine.
Woodland crafts on display.
And lastly, here's a bow-making demonstration, using a shaving horse.
Many thanks to all of you who came by our booth, we had a great time, it was a wonderful fair!
-Kathy

Fiber College 2010, Searsport, Maine

2010-09-14T03:30:00.001-07:00

This is one of the fun things about fiber festivals: glorious hand-dyed yarn. The yarn pictured above is from Linda Whiting's Pinestar Studio.

And here's another fun thing about fiber festivals: meeting hand-knitwear designers. Below is the delightful Mary Jane Mucklestone. (Notice the adorable beagle in the background! He was a sweetie!) Go to Mary Jane's website and read about her wonderful trip to Shetland. Mary Jane gave a class at Fiber College.
Here she is looking over the fiber books from Village Books in Washington, Maine. My friend Karen Jelenfy of Village Books and I shared a booth. Karen has great fiber books!
The lovely yarns below are hand-dyed by Heather, owner (and fiberista!) of Highland Handmades. I first met Heather at Maine's Fiber Frolic last spring and was happy to have her booth next to ours at Fiber College. We vendors have fun.
Pictured below is Debbie of Purple Fleece in Stockton Springs, Maine giving an impromptu spinning demonstration. She is a master spinner.
And dyer. Pictured below are Debbie's luscious hand-dyed sock weight yarns. Check out her spinning wheels. Spinning is addictive and calming, says Karen, who has plunged into the world of spinning.
The charming felted hats below are made by Michelle DeLucia of Sunshine Daydream Farm in Brownfield, Maine.
Michelle uses native, natural plant dyes.
Beautiful!
Michelle had this charming felted bag for sale in her booth, too.
There was even a lovely vegetable garden nearby.
Fiber College takes place at the scenic Searsport Shores Ocean Campground.

These photos wouldn't have been possible without the loan of a camera from Debbie, my friend at Purple Fleece, who kindly loaned me hers after I realized mine wasn't working (thank you Debbie!)

Saturday, September 18th, Karen will bring Knitting Out Loud audiobooks to Country Knitters and Spinners Fiber Festival in Presque Isle, Maine.

Saturday and Sunday, September 18 & 19, I will bring Knitting Out Loud audiobooks to the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival in Hemlock, New York.

Hope to see you there! Happy Fall!
-Kathy

Missing Elisabeth

2010-09-01T04:13:00.000-07:00

We drove our daughter to college last weekend.

The culmination of an eighteen year journey. Raising Elisabeth has been the most wonderful experience of my life.

Though sometimes filled with trepidation. But she is riding that motorcycle with a physician. A friend of ours and the father of one of her closest friends. She has a good head on her shoulders.

Here she is with Dad. On our street. He is a landscape painter, she is going to art school.
Kids these days grow up multi-tasking.
Elisabeth loved the ancient stones of Ireland, which she saw on her trip there last spring. She photographed Newgrange, which is over 5,000 years old.
She also loves gardens, and photographed this Japanese garden in Ireland.
She was taught to knit in a Waldorf/Steiner school when she was ten. These mittens are very warm, I commandeered them.
And when Elisabeth packed for school, she packed this hat I knit for her.
We are so happy and excited to send her off on this next big adventure. And the internet is a great tool for keeping in touch with family. But we do miss having her around.
-Kathy

Ruth Marshall

2010-08-22T03:43:00.001-07:00

Ruth Marshall and I first connected on Facebook. I was just totally astounded by her amazing knitting.

This piece, "Lacey Rocky", is sweet, charming and old-fashioned, with a kind of folk-art feel to it.
The other knitted pieces are, well, knitted reptile and animal skins.

Beautifully knit.

This is a full knitted pelt. Ruth Marshall's website has many of these pelts.

Why does Ruth knit skins?

Here's her story:

"I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia. In my twenties I traveled overseas for two years, living in Amsterdam, Holland, visiting Thailand, Myanmar, most of Europe and fulfilled a lifelong desire to see the ancient art of Egypt. I returned home to Australia and studied for my BA in sculpture and printmaking at Phillip Institute of Technology.

In 1993 I was awarded the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, a generous sponsor in promoting overseas education of Australian visual art students. I began my Masters degree in sculpture at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Upon graduation I obtained employment at the Wildlife Conservation Society, more commonly known as the Bronx Zoo. I was employed at the Bronx Zoo as an exhibit sculptor and fabricator for fourteen years, where my primary goal was to replicate artificial natural environments, offering enriched and educational arenas for animals and humans alike. Presently I teach drawing at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

I started knitting animal skins while I was working at the Bronx Zoo. I learnt so much about the animals there and immediately started incorporating them into my artwork. My workplace backed up to the snow leopard enclosures and I was really captivated by the beauty of these animals and struggled with ideas about how to represent them.
My mother and aunt taught me how to knit as a young girl and I was an obsessive and quite accomplished knitter up until I became a teenager. Segue to the present - I hadn't knitted much for years just baby clothes for new additions to the family, but on a trip to Australia a number of years ago I was bored and looking for something to do and I began knitting socks for my whole family, (complicated Estonian socks from Nancy Bush's books).
I took to knitting these socks at work and my boss was particularly fascinated by them. One day he gave me a job to repair a cast plastic Gabon viper and joked about the pattern of the snakes skin saying, "You should knit that!", it was one of those light bulb moments that just exploded, so I did knit that snake and that's really how it started. I looked around me at the animal collection and realized that there was a whole array of animals that could be interpreted into knitted textiles. In particular species of the cat family have at various times struggled to survive because the beauty and texture of their coats have long been coveted and this problem continues to plague species today alongside other issues of conservation. So I am very interested in the idea of replacing the real pelt with a knitted one. With a knitted pelt I can showcase the beauty, size and the violence that visits these animals when they are slain by stretching the knitted pelt on a frame of sticks - (this idea comes from a photo I saw in a book where a jaguar was killed and stretched out on some sticks lashed together to dry out the skin, this jaguar had been studied in the wild with a radio collar on. When the signal went dead the scientist quickly found out what had happened to his study animal when he went back to the village where he was staying.) So I am very interested in the idea of replacing the real pelt with a knitted one and having a dialogue about conservation in my artwork.

Ruth is about to begin a three month residency at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City where she will begin a series of knitted tiger pelts. Wish I could trot right over and have a look.
-Kathy

Village Books, Washington, Maine

2010-08-16T06:41:00.000-07:00

My friend Karen Jelenfy, as many of you know, not only accompanies me on Knitting Out Loud trips (thereby making them even more fun) but has a business of her own right here in Maine. Karen has a delightful used book shop called Village Books. And she specializes in, you guessed it, fiber-related books (see her knitting shelf above!) as well as just plain fiber (see the fiber table below! hand-spun yarn and roving!).
If you are looking for a particular book (on any subject) Karen will do a search for you. Below is pictured a shelf of books on Maine.
And she has books on tea. And tea pots.
And a great selection of books on other subjects. I especially loved The Historian, pictured in the stack below. It's a kind of vampire mystery, beautifully written, which moves between the centuries (but nothing like that other vampire writer). Karen also carries wonderful and incredibly useful hand-forged hooks made by her blacksmith husband Jeff.
Hooks above! Roving below!
Lastly, Karen and Jeff keep two cashmere goats, Winnie and Lucy.
Here's what Karen says about Maine, fiber and bookstores:

In 2004 we finally got sick of traveling the Washington, D.C. Beltway. Jeff found a job in Maine so we jumped. I had no idea what I was going to do up here except paint & write & become human again.
I took a job teaching art at a wonderful preschool in Camden during the school year, but had no work in the summers. A lovely, bright space became available in my village and I asked myself "What needs to be there?" And we all know every town should have a bookstore. The day I opened I (laughably) had 50 books. Now I have somewhere between 2-3000.

My fiber life started in 1979 when I taught myself to weave on a frame loom. I knew I wanted to make stuff with color, but couldn't find a direction. But I LOVED BUYING YARN! Eventually I gave up on weaving (hated warping) and went to graduate school to study painting & sculpture. When my daughter Roxanne was 11, she taught me to knit. Despite many holes & other
oddities, I kept knitting through my mother's final illness and buying our house here in Maine. I was definitely hooked on the therapeutic value of knitting. The rest of it (goats, knitting seriously, learning to spin, buying fleeces,knit bombing etc) is entirely the fault of my friend Kathy and Knitting Out Loud. It's a "gateway" company!

Goats. They are what happens to you when you go to fiber festivals. Well, and possibly spinning.
Happy end of summer to everyone,
- Kathy

New England Fiber Arts Retreat at Medomak Camp, Maine

2010-08-08T16:27:00.001-07:00

They are spinning with a drop spindle at the New England Fiber Arts Retreat, Medomak Camp, Washington, Maine. Karen (Village Books) and I visited last Monday.
The fellow whose family weaving business in South America makes these was there as a teacher.
Lovely!

Look at the knitting samples...
The hats and mittens above, and the gorgeous sweater below are from Hope Spinnery.
Hope Spinnery's delightful owner Bill Huntington was teaching at the retreat.
More samples from other knitting teachers and students above.
Weaving class.
The stone fireplace in the lodge.
Students' dying projects.
And we were there with our audiobooks.
I can't imagine a nicer vacation than spending a week knitting, weaving, spinning and dyeing in the Maine woods!

Bread Fair 2010

2010-08-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

As Cooking Out Loud (with South Wind Through the Kitchen) I was a vendor at the Bread Fair (part of the Kneading Conference) in Skowhegan, Maine on Saturday. There were also lots of knitters there, the knitting/kneading connection? The above photo I have used before in this blog, and it is of bread baked by our friend Bob Fickett. Bob and his wife Vicki drove two hours to be at the Bread Fair, and it was great to see them. I met people who had traveled from all over the country to attend this Kneading Conference.
My camera ran out of juice, so I only have two photos. Scythe Supply was there. We already have a scythe, but it needs a snath. So I spoke with owner Carol Bryan about snaths. Her scythe blades are imported from Austria.
There were several companies with outdoor/indoor wood-fired ovens. Le Panyol makes a modular oven, which you can buy from Maine Wood Heat. They have a beautiful website.

There were vendors selling wheat you can plant, harvest (with a scythe, or not), mill and bake. A woman who came by said she was not ready to grow and mill her own wheat yet. We're not either. But I love the idea of it.

Janice Jones was there with beautiful hand-woven towels.

Sharon Lovejoy, author of Toad Cottages and Shooting Stars, came by. She has just moved to an island in Maine. Her book is filled with wonderful outdoor projects and ideas for children.
What fun!
-Kathy

ancestors

2010-07-25T17:08:00.000-07:00

This is a photograph of a typical hard-working American family taken about one hundred years ago, probably in Rosenberg, Texas. My cousin just emailed it to me; the little girl squinting, lower right, is my grandmother Exia Southwick (nee Rawson). Exia was a character. She was high spirited, loved to laugh and created magical gardens in California where she lived as an adult. I remember a garden in San Jose with apricot and almond trees (delicious) and gladiolus, roses, pansies and fuschias which I made into ballerinas. Along her driveway was a cactus garden in which I frequently fell while jumping rope, roller skating or chasing jacks balls and consequently hated. Exia always loved the mountains of California and loved nothing better than to jump in the car and drive to Yosemite, which we often did. She thought nothing of driving from California to Texas and did so through hurricanes on occasion. Exia was a red-head, my mother is a red-head and my daughter is a red-head and Exia lived to see the birth of my daughter on her own birthday.
- Kathy

Books and gardens

2010-07-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

I needed a post for today, so I ran outside to photograph my garden again. The thing is, I love my garden, and the season is very short here in Maine. But I also want to talk about books, because I was hugged by an author I admire today, Linda Greenlaw. I first became aware of her while reading the book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger. The Perfect Storm is a true account of a recent marine disaster off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Linda Greenlaw was a captain of a fishing vessel mentioned in the book. She grew up on the Maine island of Isle au Haut, went to Bowdoin College, then became the captain of a fishing ship. The same summer I read The Perfect Storm, I also read the gripping (well both these books are gripping) Into Thin Air by John Krakauer, about a mountain climbing disaster on Mt Everest.
Linda Greenlaw is a fascinating person for many reasons. A ship captain! An author! And she also has written two murder mysteries and a cookbook. Definitely a woman to admire.

A friend of mine owns the delightful bookstore in Searsport, Maine, Left Bank Books, at which I fill in when needed. Today they co-hosted a book-signing with Linda Greenlaw at the Penobscot Marine Museum and needed me to mind the shop. I wouldn't be able to meet Linda Greenlaw!
I was to be at the bookstore and she at the Museum. Sadly, I settled down behind the cash register, directed folks across the street to the Museum, and began to read Linda's wonderful book about being a swordfish boat captain, The Hungry Ocean. Suddenly I looked up and there she was. "It's me!" she said. I jumped up, very excited, "I have to shake your hand." But when I came towards her she gave me a hug.
I was in heaven. Happy ending.
I came home to a delicious dinner cooked by my husband, and we watched two episodes of the HBO series The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency, which is quite charming. It is filmed in Botswana. We had listened to the novels on audio and enjoyed them very much.
Lastly, getting back to gardens, my favorite garden writer is Vita-Sackville West, who made the famous Sissinghurst Castle Garden in England.

We're having a glorious summer here. Hope you are, too.
- Kathy

Monday Blog Cafe! Has art changed your life?

2010-07-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

This Monday we are hosting the Blog Cafe. I first saw this on The Knitting Blog by Mr. Puffy the Dog, which I love (I think of it as Mr. Puffy's Knitting Blog) and is one of the many wonderful knitting/life blogs on the web.

So here's the idea - this is from the Blog Cafe website:
Every Monday, we're going to gather at somebody's blog for some food, fun, and great conversation. Each week, we will have a different blogger act as our host for our virtual get-together. When you are the host, you will choose what we're "eating" and where we're "meeting", and you'll get us started on a topic of conversation. We hope you'll share some photos of where you're taking us and what we're having--give us a taste of the local fare and maybe give us a peek of the world in your neck of the woods! Then the rest of us--anyone and everyone is welcome--will pop in for a visit sometime throughout the day and leave a comment. We'll share our thoughts and insights on the topic you've chosen, and we'll all get to know each other better!

So we are eating muffins (see above) and gathering at The Good Kettle, a new take-out cafe in Stockton Springs, Maine, my home town.
They have home-made local produce and prepared food, soups, sandwiches and especially delicious jams and chutneys. You can get an entire meal to go! Or just fudge.
And wines, including the very delicious Maine Bartlett wines. They make a wonderful dry pear wine. And will ship!
This cafe shop is adorable.
They carry gorgeous hand-woven towels made by my neighbor Debbie who owns the yarn, weaving and spinning store Purple Fleece. You can now buy Debbie's hand-dyed yarn online, and her patterns are on Ravelry.
Lastly, The Good Kettle has cute tee shirts!

So the Blog Cafe discussion topic is this: has art changed your life?

The arts: books, movies, paintings, plays, music, are my steadfast, entertaining, illuminating, life-affirming, comforting companions. At the risk of sounding a bit corny, they feed my soul and shelter my spirit. But in fact they do.

As a moody teenager, I spent hours in my room listening to Chopin and the Beatles, reading a biography of Toulouse-Lautrec, Salinger's Franny and Zooey, Jane Austen, Magister Ludi. Out of high school I worked at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts when it was a sleepy old-fashioned place, and loved to wander through the rooms and be alone especially with the Egyptian and Greek sculpture. During college I fell in love with John Singer Sargent and frequently visited his remarkable portrait at the MFA, Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.

After college I worked for an antiquities dealer named Mr. Berheimer in his basement shop in Harvard Square (where I read all of Chekov and Simone de Beauvoir's four volume autobiography, the first one, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter being my favorite). I was in an unhappy marriage at the time and one day was looking at Middle Eastern sculpture fragments made by someone some two thousand years ago and suddenly felt not alone in my misery.

A record of the musical Ain't Misbehavin' got me through the divorce and alone at night I watched Mash and read Ursula Le Guin's astonishing, healing, mind-blowing Earth Sea Trilogy and several of May Sarton's autobiographies - again the first, I Knew a Phoenix, was my favorite.

When I moved to Maine and met Scott Moore and discovered he loved medieval music I knew he was the man for me.

I could go on but am very tired having just returned from TKGA & TCGA's Knit and Crochet Show in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was a great show and lovely to see so many of you there! So please leave a comment and share your art experiences with us!
- Kathy

favorite movies

2010-06-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Here is the famous picture of Cary Grant knitting in the movie "Mr. Lucky", which I have not seen (why?). Cary couldn't knit, but Katherine Hepburn was a famous knitter. Here is a link to a wonderful list of novels, movies and television shows with knitting in them: hipforums.com.

Last month some friends and I were sitting and waiting for two husbands to return from the mountains driving a slightly wonky car so we were a bit nervous, and we started talking about movies, which ones were our favorites, and all of a sudden two hours went by and the husbands walked in safe and sound. I have the full list, but I want to organize it, so for now here are my (not in any particular order) top ten (for right now):

1. Fanny and Alexander
2. Jaws
3. Lion in Winter
4. Strictly Ballroom
5. La Nuit de Varennes
6. Dead Again
7. Red Beard
8. Seven Samuri
9. Year of Living Dangerously
10. North By Northwest
11. My Man Godfrey
12. Babette's Feast
13. Secret of Roan Inish
14. Waking Ned Devine
15. Thirty-Nine Steps
16. Witness
17. Room with a View
18. Sabrina
19. Breakfast at Tiffany's
20. Murder She Said
21. Diva
22. Harvey

Okay top twenty-two. These are movies I have seen many times and will continue to watch for the rest of my life. "Murder She Said", and all the Miss Marple movies with Margaret Rutherford, are my comfort movies (to watch when sick, sad, missing a traveling family member, sleepless, snowed in). As is the BBC tv Pride and Prejudice. Do you have movies you watch over and over? Or comfort movies?

Now for something completely different.
My husband and I spent the day transcribing a group of letters written during the Civil War by a soldier in a Connecticut regiment. We are both interested in history, and started out saying we were only going to do one or two of the letters (he reading, I typing). We did twelve of the thirty or so letters. We just couldn't stop. This guy was at Gettysburg. He had dinner with a rebel family whose son was in the Confederate Army. They marched to Tennessee. It was so hot men dropped dead of the heat. They were starving on half rations. And on and on, we finally stopped at the end of 1863.

What I have been meaning to blog about is my daughter's high school graduation last month, what she knit (and drew - she's going to art school) during her childhood, what I knit for her, and am knitting for her now to take with her to college (not that she needs it). This is big this going away from home, this ending of childhood, this starting up of a brand new exciting chapter. Anyway, that's coming up.
-Kathy

Anne Shayne Describes The Recording Experience

2010-06-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

From Katherine Jane:

Back in 2009, Ann Shayne blogged on Mason-Dixon about recording for us in a Nashville studio. Apparently this was a lifelong goal for her--something to check off the bucket list! See Ann's full post here:

http://www.masondixonknitting.com/archives/2009_02.html#002613

Although we have fun with all our books, recording Mason-Dixon's Knitting Outside The Lines was especially entertaining: at some points they had to re-record, because Kathy was laughing so hard that you could hear her in the background!

You can find the audiobook here.

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Katherine Jane Arathoon lives in New York City and occasionally guest blogs for Knitting Out Loud. She also blogs at Between Ewe And Me.

Notes from New York: Plushtashes!

2010-06-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

From Katherine Jane:

A couple weeks ago I went to the MoCCA festival--a yearly event hosted by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. While wandering around the tables my eye was caught by this lovely lady and her adorable crocheted mustaches, or "plushstaches:"

The artist's name is Shannon Gerard, and she also crochets small anatomically-correct hearts. We chatted for a while about the differences between knitting and crochet, and how it's rare to find someone who doesn't heavily prefer one to the other (she falls in the crochet camp, I fall in the knitting camp, though we both wish we were more ambidextrous). Ms. Gerard also noted that she sees a strong tendency for her knitting friends to be good bakers. I've never noticed that correlation before, but I guess it makes sense--knitters tend to be good at following patterns precisely, so maybe they're also good at following recipes.

My friend Evan bought one of those plushstaches and we found it a thoroughly entertaining item to have around:

friend Jesse gives it a spin

Evan is just covered in mustaches these days

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Katherine Jane Arathoon lives in New York City and occasionally guest blogs for Knitting Out Loud. She also blogs at Between Ewe And Me.

Father's Day

2010-06-20T16:06:00.001-07:00

My husband, Scott Moore, is a landscape painter. The above painting is "June Evening Sears Island". We have been taking walks on this island for twenty years.

Today we went to Bar Harbor for a small exhibit of paintings from Argosy Gallery. We arrived early and took a walk around town. There is my husband with my daughter and her boyfriend waking towards the water.

We took the cliff path, along the ocean. There are mansions and inns along the path.
And some lovely gardens.

There is something wrong with my camera and it won't adjust for sun. Scott kept asking me, "Do you have the manual?" Of course I have the manual, somewhere.

I love the precision and symmetry of this house.
And the asymmetry and cottage-y feeling of this one.
This faux Tudor house has been converted into a restaurant.
A garden shop.
Outdoor restaurant.
It was a lovely day. Bar Harbor is a tourist destination, but also a charming town, and it was full of visitors. You can tell they are father and daughter even from the back.

The exhibit was hosted by Galyn's Restaurant, who catered delicious food, very artistically displayed. My daughter pointed out the mice radishes.

Scott had two night paintings on display.

And a blueberry barren.

We came home, Scott made pasta allacarbonara, and we watched Kenneth Branagh's movie "Love's Labour's Lost".

Yesterday, to celebrate Knit in Public Day, I knit with some lovely ladies and gave my Stories of Knitting talk at the Milford, Connecticut public library. It was a six hour drive, and we spent the night in a beautiful condo overlooking Long Island Sound. On the way down and back we listened to the audiobook "The Shadow of the Wind" which takes place in Barcelona and I knit a blanket for my daughter who graduated from high school this month.

Happy Father's Day!

Notes from New York: Yarnbombing

2010-06-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

From Katherine Jane:

Yarnbombing seems to be coming up a lot recently in conversation, but until recently I had never seen it in the wild. Then new friend Ben organized a field trip to explore the Lower East Side, and we came across an art gallery that had all its windows covered in camouflage crochet:

They had also covered a bicycle that was resting outside, right down to the kickstand:

Later we find ourselves in a crammed-full candy store. The store also had little knicknacks, and a variety of little piggy banks, including these two:

Which made me wonder: would be possible to be a rock star knitter?
-Katherine Jane

From Kathy: Katherine Jane, we have yarnbombing right here in Maine!

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Katherine Jane Arathoon lives in New York City and occasionally guest blogs for Knitting Out Loud. She also blogs at Between Ewe And Me.