my icelandic mittens!

Clara Parkes! At Purl Diva! Today!

She’s a hoot, I really enjoyed gabbing with her… and we (not the royal we, I had a friend with me!) learned that if we ever meet Ann Budd, we should get her liquored up, and she’ll be even crazier (there is a story involving a pen and signing a body part). We also learned that Clara’s cat may be a bit intellectually challenged. But nice…

We also learned that wearing soft and lovely Cormo may make a bystander pet you, and you can say, oh, feel it up higher, and get a massage!

We went to Brunswick by way of Lisbon, meaning we saw Amy, who is having a store-wide sale that she’s taking on-line… I may have bought some yarn there (for a secret xmas project) and a book… But I got Clara’s book at Ellen’s!

And a rather expensive cup of coffee in Brunswick (because I had to have the mug)… I don’t have one that fits in my car’s cupholder, and look, made in the US, how great is that? Mostly it’s the little dog that got me…

There was also lunch at the Frontier Cafe, which was absolutely FABULOUS!

It’s in an old mill building, right on the Androscoggin River, and the food and beer is incredible!

I love the bells around my neck… they were a fundraiser at the convenience store in Lisbon. I chose carefully, based on how the bells sounded!

(yes, that is my finger in one of the photos above… and it looks like there is something on my lens….)

Which I guess shouldn’t surprise anybody.

The trouble I went with, and the trouble I met…

Sara and David.

More trouble,

Of course I was no trouble!

You really may not want to know what is going on here… I brought Amy a jar of freshly made lotion, and um, well… David had to go have a smoke after this.

I haven’t spun since March, and have some thin fawn colored alpaca going. Since I stress about making it thin, and haven’t spun in over half a year, I brought some corriedale in a bright color. But you can see I didn’t get much spinning done.

icelandic mitten progress

I finished one mitten (minus the thumb), but it is much too narrow. So I started another, added more stitches, went up to 3 mm needles, and am using a different color pattern.

I figure I’ll make this one, and hopefully I’ll have enough to make another without having to rip back the first one, though what would I do with one small mitten? Maybe undo it a bit and felt it into a little bag or something.

I don’t usually make this type of thumb. Not sure I like it, we’ll see…

Maybe it’s because she’s a chaplain? But who knew a chaplain could be so much fun?

Had a great time over at Ellen’s yesterday.

Kate Braestrup was great company, and I enjoyed the interesting, funny, serious things she to say, but mostly I enjoyed meeting her. I have not read her book, but I have heard wonderful things about it, and she did a reading… which made me want to read it!

Loki also enjoyed Kate’s company!

(I think they were talking about Kilim style mittens)

Gotta love the woman’s color sense!

She doesn’t knit using patterns!

This one thought I had something special for her in my bag… I think there were biscuits in there a week or two ago… but that little border collie pup got those!

There’s a few more pictures from the day here.

If you haven’t been over to Ellen’s in a while, go! She opened up the store and has more room, more patterns and books, and loads more yarn. And lots of scrumptious yummy yarn. And lots of good solid basic yarn. And did I say beautiful yarn? I brought a couple items home… but sssshhhh! Maybe I’ll put up some pictures on ravelry, at least until after xmas.

As in impish little kids

These are Pogo’s mohair goat kids, at Friend’s Folly Farm. Yes, yes, I had to return the wheel. So sad! But I got to spend some time gabbing and hanging around watching the kids. They are absolutely hilarious.

I suggested that Pogo start a goat kid therapy group where folks could just come and look at the kids and their antics. It was good for the soul. Kind of like hanging out with puppies. The kids didn’t want much to do with strangers approaching them (a good lesson for human kids too!), but after a bit, they’d get curious and come over to explore. Which they do with their mouths!

this little guy was especially taken with my friend’s coat!

My friend is not a knitter (gasp!) nor a spinner nor a blogger, but she loves animals and is a total suckup for tactile things like squishy fiber. We got to visit Katie in the mill, and my friend purchased some yarn so I can make her some Maine Morning Mitts.

In the mill….

Pogo says this machine is called ‘Charlotte’

I pointed out to my buddy how the fiber looks all webbed just before it comes out of the machine as roving… which is when we learned the machine has a name, based on that web! Can you see the fiber? It’s in the lower left corner. Usually I am not a big fan of blue, but this is a very happy blue. And wonderfully squishy.

 Lots of rain in April means high river water!

(it’s usually to the left of those signs and trees)

More pics here, including a picture of the City’s mega snowpile under the big bridge.

And a minute long video clip of the Kennebec River roaring under the ‘low bridge’ is here (still haven’t figured out how to embed…).

Check out the USGS web cam with updated shots over the river. There’s a hydrograph at the bottom of the page, wild how fast the water came up last night.

And, for you Mainah’s living away that want to know what’s happening around here, check out what’s going on in the St. John River Valley (click on ‘view slideshow’ at the end of the first paragraph). The gov declared a state of emergency up there and closed their state offices today.

Three years ago? (ok, technically a bit more, april 1, 2005)

The usually crazed and packed LYS (sadly gone!) was supposed to get flooding like in 1987, when the river was knee deep in the store! (these pics are crappy, so don’t embiggen!).  Here is a link to USGS photos of the 1987 flood.

We packed it all up

and the early release prisoners helped cart out the big and heavy stuff. You should have seen Water St in Hallowell that day… a line of u-hauls up and down the streets, everybody packed up and left! (well except for one crazy antique dealer).

Painted while it was empty

And 2 weeks later were back in business.

Here’s the back deck the day the river was supposed to crest.  In 1987, she would have been wet to her knees! She is standing on a deck that is in essence on the second floor in the back.  Luckily for all it only reached the back of the building and didn’t even get into the basement.

(the second picture may have been from the flood a couple weeks later, mid april 2005, notice the couch out there!)

Lynnie had no idea, and when she came back to work (she’d been off for a bit), was she in for a surprise! Because the store was totally re-arranged (ok, so the picture up above is after the move, couldn’t find one from before….)