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Maine Fiberarts Tour Weekend at Hatchtown Farm

!! Fiber !! Fiber !! Fiber !! Fiber !!

 

Check out the Hatchtown page at the Maine Fiberarts website.

Fri., Sat. & Sun.
August 5, 6 & 7
10 am — 5 pm

 
Hatchtown Farm is either No. 67 or No. 15
Now, if you have the large, glossy Tour Map that Maine Fiberarts printed up a couple of years ago, or are viewing the Printed Tour Map on the MFA website, we are No. 67 on the Pemaquid peninsula. But, if you have the smaller flyer printed this summer, you’ll find us as No. 15. So! ..if you are really going to come on down it might be the easiest for you to jump over to the Contact page right here on our website for all the information you might need. The webpage lists all the specifics and particulars …phone number and such. You can even have the Google Map folks work up a set a of customized directions with maps just for you.

We're Moving...

BIG NEWS…Our booth at Rhinebeck (NY State Sheep & Wool Festival) will be in a new location…Building B.  After many years in our lovely spot on the loft of the horticultural building (aka Bldg 22), the local fire marshalls decided it was too crowded to be safe and the festival organizers gave all of us on that side of the loft our marching orders.

Hatchtown Farm 2009 Booth at Rhinebeck

Hatchtown Farm 2009 Booth at Rhinebeck

  I don’t think any of us are really thrilled about the move but hey! what can we do…  A majority of us from the loft will still be together in Building B and that’ll fun because we’ve been neighbors for such a long time.  And there are a bunch of other vendors who’d been asking for larger booth spaces who will be moving in there, too.  So be sure to come see us!  Building B is the place to “B”!!!

Click on the map for a larger view. 

Fiber CSA Send Off…YAY!!

In the last week, the studio has been taken over by boxes of fiber arriving from the mill.  I’m not complaining — anything fiber is a good thing!  It’s been fun weighing the roving and packing it into bags for our shareholders.  The yarn shares took far less time to label and pack  but were equally as fun to do.  All I can say is YUM!  I’m so excited to be sending off our first CSA shares and am so very grateful to all who took the plunge in our first year!  Here’s a peek…

Don't want to spoil the surprise but...

yarn and roving for CSA shareholdrers

 

This corner of the studio became the packing area.
This corner of the studio became the packing area.

   

Camo Kitty

Hermes has taken a liking to the studio…no doubt because he knows this is the one place in the house that he’s not supposed to be.  I’m realizing that kitties are not very different than kids.  I have to be very careful about going in and out because he’s very good at slipping through my legs.  He’s now started yowling and trying to break the door down (scratching & throwing himself at the door) when he knows I’m in there and of course, I can’t get anything done when he’s making such a pest of himself so I give up and let him in.

Hermes blends right in with this roving!

Hermes blends right in with this roving!

Usually, he’s happy to curl up on the chair and sleep but when I’m going in and out and he knows I’ll kick him out when I’m leaving, he hides…and there are some very good places to hide in the studio! 

The other day, this is where I found him!  I walked past him twice before noticing his tail hanging out of the box and twitching…

News of Maryland

Here it is Friday and I’m finally sitting down to write about Maryland.  I haven’t a clue where the week has gone and on top of that, I just realized that two posts I did before I left weren’t published…ugh…guess I must’ve been more panicked than I thought!

Because I spend far too much time obsessing about the weather, I’ll sum up the festival weather report in one word — WET! — and now we can move on to more enjoyable topics.

The ACR booth was well stocked with glorious Coopworth fiber and I really had to work at not buying one of everything.

Deb, Kris & Nina at the ACR booth.

Deb, Kris & Nina at the ACR booth.

What I did come home with was a couple of small bags of dyed roving (Martha M) and a sweet needle felted sheep (Deb M) for my collection.  I really wanted to bring home a few of Kris B‘s handmade sheep cards but never got around to choosing which ones…good thing I know how to find her!   At other booths I found some lovely yarn for a Lynne Vogel pattern that I really like, a skein of small farm (Suffolk/Dorset) sock yarn from Solitude — love what they’re doing for their local wool growers — and some dyes to play with.  At Spinner’s Hill, I found a pair of socks I couldn’t leave behind and at Kiparoo Wool,  a pair of fingerless mitts for Jim.  I know…I could knit these but the fact is that I probably wouldn’t so…now he has a pair. In my wanderings, I ran into old friends and chatted with total stangers while waiting in various lines.  I stuffed myself full of fresh squeezed lemonade, leg of lamb sandwiches and kettle corn and fell into bed on Saturday night after a dinner of a few slices of cheddar cheese, a handful of peanut M&M’s and a half glass of wine…exhausted!

We tried to get some enthusiasm for the World’s Longest Scarf project going at the booth but it was difficult — the weather kept us from being able to set up a comfy spot for people to rest their bones while knitting a row or two.

World's Longest Scarf project @ MDS&W 2009

This young lady is knitting a row on the World's Longest Scarf. This is the first fiber festival she's ever been to. What a great memory for her to take home!

Between showers, we managed to get a few people to knit a bit, tho.  What’s this Longest Scarf thing?  As part of the celebration of the International Year of Natural Fibres, teams around the world will knit sections of the World’s Longest Scarf that will all be joined together at the New York Sheep & Wool Festival Oct. 17-18, 2009.  The goal is to raise $250,000.00 that Heifer Intenational will use to donate fleece-bearing animals of all kinds to needy families all around the world.  Heifer not only donates the animals, but provides the necessary training so that the families can nurture and grow their herds and become self-sufficient.  www.heifer.org  The money will be raised by donation of $1.00 per row knitted/crocheted or  $10.00 per inch woven/felted.

 

Letty showed us what to check for.

Letty showed us what to check for.

At the ACR’s annual meeting on Saturday night, we talked about all the usual stuff but the best part was a Conformation Clinic that Martha arranged with Letty Klein.  We went into the sheep barns where we were able to get some hands on experience. Letty was delightful and so knowledgeable.  I learned some new points and have been looking at my sheep in a whole new way!

More Festival news coming soon…