An Afternoon in Portland

On our last day in Maine we explored downtown Portland and the surrounding coast. 

Matt wanted authentic New England Clam Chowder so we went to Gilbert's in downtown Portland for lunch.

In the restaurant Matt and Dad looked at an old navigational map of the Maine coast. 

Matt and his clam chowder, brimming over in a bread bowl. 

After lunch we headed to Portland Head Lighthouse at low tide. 

Under the lighthouse.

Old wood at the Lighthouse.

We left Portland Head and went to Twin Lights where we explored a bit of the park and coast line. These burrs were similar to the ones that were stuck in the alpaca fur from a few days ago. 

Lichen growing on the rocks.

Dad and Matt in the waning light.

Rocky shore line. 

Dad explores tide pools at sunset. 

Driftwood

Matt and Dad searched for sea glass.

Matt gets ready to dip his finger into the Atlantic...

Brrrrrr!

The sun sets on another wonderful day. 

I even managed to fit some yarn shopping in, at a great local shop called KnitWit. I will share my yarn haul from another local company, Quince and Co. in a later post.


Long drive home tomorrow.


msi. 

Good Karma in Maine

Yesterday marked the first official day of our Maine vacation. The guy and I flew in late Monday night and met with my Dad and step-mom at the airport. We awoke yesterday to a beautiful, crisp Maine morning. I have been wanting to visit Good Karma Farms for about a year now, since I first felt their fiber at a Knitty Yarn Tasting at the Purple Purl in Toronto. When I read the label and found out they were located in Belfast, Maine, about two hours away from my Dad's, I knew I needed to go. 

And go we did. The small family owned farm was in full operation, and Josh and owner Jim were more than happy to give us a tour and lesson in how their yarn goes from fluff to fantastic fibre. After seeing the machines in action, Jim took us out to the fields to meet the animals: chickens, alpacas, 2 llamas and a one-eyed cat. It was freezing cold, but the time flew by as Jim answered all of our questions and the alpacas put on a show for us. Below are some of my photos, be warned there are a gratuitous number of alpaca photos. They are so cute, I couldn't help myself! After the tour I bought a bunch of their awesome hand dyed and spun yarns and a needle felting kit to take home. It was truly an experience I won't soon forget!

Loved the vintage look of the signs out front. Taken with Vintage Cam.

First stop on the tour was seeing the raw fibre. After it is washed it is put through a machine that removes all of the burrs and other vegetation. Then it goes through the drum carder which removes the shorter fibres and aligns the fibres nicely. 

After running through the drum carder, the result is undyed roving. 

Good Karma Farms does and additional step and runs their roving through this machine which further removes short fibres so it will be less likely to pill and felt.

Yarn is then spun by this machine. We saw it in action making yarn for a blanket company.

This little guy was very curious about what we were up to. 

Out in the alpaca fields with the female alpacas and the babies. This sweetie was Phillipe, born in May this year. He was no so interested in a kiss from this other alpaca because he was very curious about the lady approaching him with the camera. 

Phillipe is unsure about me. 

But he warmed up eventually. 

The girls were aloof at first but as I got closer they were more curious about my presence. 

This is Dolly, one of the two llamas. She galloped over to say hello. 

After visiting the girls we went to the next field to visit the boys. They were much more curious, friendly and boisterous.

These two brothers put on quite the show, jumping and wrestling in the late afternoon light. 

Being stared at by alpacas.

I love their fuzzy, sweet faces. 

I may have bought some yarn. So gorgeous!

msi. 

New Technology, Vintage Look

The guy and I both got new ipod touches for Christmas, and we got to unwrap them early so we can have them during the upcoming Christmas travel and festivities. I had an older generation itouch that I bought used a while back and I loved it. The most exciting thing about the new one is the built in camera. I have already downloaded instagram, vintage cam and hipstomatic. I love that these programs allow you to make photos that look and feel vintage. You can follow me on instagram (nervousknitter) but here are a few of the pictures I took of this lazy Sunday.

Tiny and Large - my two most recent finished knits, A bulky cowl out of Malabrigo Rasta and a delicate fingerless mitten out of Tanis Fiber Arts merino cashmere fingering weight.

Yesterday during my last shopping attempt I bought this ball at Romni Wool. The staff made over 50 balls from the new book 50 Christmas Balls to Knit and sold them for charity. All of the proceeds from these balls go to POGO (Paediatric Oncology Group Ontario). I though the squirrel motif went perfectly with our woodland themed tree. 

Our beautiful handmade ornament laden tree.

Gorgeous flowers, a holiday gift from my dear friend Lindsay

Taken on my Nikon, I couldn't resist showing a close up on the lusciousness that is the Malabrigo cowl. 

Lola just had to get in on the photo shoot action. 

'til next time,


msi.

Vacation Starts!

Tonight marks the beginning of two weeks of vacation. I'm so thankful to have this break - the winter holidays are one of my favourite times of year - spending time with family, knitting to take the chill off, Christmas music and twinkly lights. It has been an immensely complicated year with amazing moments and  profoundly sad ones. Life marches on, but I am glad at this time of year to take a rare second to pause and reflect.


That said I'm not going to sit here for hours thinking of something interesting to say, but will leave you with a short story and these photos of our Christmas tree. It is not "real" as I had planned, and it is much smaller than I wanted, but I love it all the same.


The first knitted monster I ever made was a Rebecca Danger's Dot the Dress-up monster. Once he was finished I had him proudly displayed on the sofa where Lola and him would cuddle up for naps. Then my mom came for a visit. Within 30 seconds she had scooped the monster off the sofa and didn’t put him down all day. I relented and told her she could have him. Completely enamoured and excited by her new knitted prize mom went off to show my grandmother. When she came back upstairs empty handed it wasn’t hard to imagine what had happened. My Nan had also fallen in love with this little monster, had immediately named him Sheldon Sinclair, the Avocado Monster and found a place for him in her home. Mom didn’t have the heart to take him away. So she came back to tell me that I not only needed to knit myself another monster, but she wanted one too. So for Christmas I made her this Dot, With Stripes! who is waiting patiently under the tree for her new mommy to come and take him home.

Chilling with the Nutcracker my grandfather made me when I was a little girl,

This picture is several years old, from Lola's first Christmas, when mom bought her the dorkiest elf costume. She was forever immortalized in this photo as the Grinch! It makes me laugh every year

Back to holiday knitting!


msi

Countdown to the Holidays

I have been keeping very busy over the past few weeks working on my Christmas Knit List. I've been sick with a respiratory infection so have had a few days at home to get a bit of knitting done. Despite progress I still have a long way to go! I have at least three pairs of half finished socks and three half finished pairs of mittens and gloves. I don't have attention span issues at all :P It doesn't help that I have also fallen in love with all sorts of knitted ornament patterns and have been making some of those as well.

Speaking of ornaments, here are some of the handmade ornaments I have made over the past few weeks.

Pompom owls 

Yarn covered mini-wreaths

A tiny gnome (about 3 inches tall) and...

his tiny reindeer friend! Both patterns are from Teeny Tiny Mochimochi by Anna Hrachovec 

I am well on my way to getting enough to decorate the tree, but I'm finding ornament making addictive and the more I make the more I want!

Another project that I finished up was my monster swap on the Danger Crafts board on Ravelry. I made this sweet mini monster for another participant in the swap and she has made her way to her new home in Nova Scotia.

Meet mini-Ivy and her friend Chuck, the snowball. 

I was inspired by this blog to make a tree decoration for the table using a paper mache cone and some Christmas papers. Unlike the person who made the original I don't have the little paper press thingy, so this involved lots of paper cutting while watching TV.

My table top paper tree

Lastly, I made a great wreath for our door using styrofoam balls and some white, grey and gold yarns. I got the idea from this blog. A few balls were also wrapped in jute and I accented the balls with tiny spiky pom poms and sparkly snowflakes. This wreath was so easy to make: essentially I bought a bunch of Vanna's choice yarn on sale at Michael's and wrapped three sizes of styrofoam balls. Then I used a pie plate to arrange the larger balls in a circle of the right size. I probably should have affixed them to a wreath frame, but instead the guy made me one out of some jewelry wire and felt.What a handy guy he is! I glued the large balls together, attached the frame and then added the smaller balls and embellishments with hot glue.

Wrapping lots and lots of styrofoam balls

Making the wreath base

Finished with embellishments!

Now that it is December 1st I am going to allow myself to hang this beauty on the door.

Well, back to the needles!

msi