Field Trip!

Last month, I went on a little field trip to Bartlett Yarn Mills, in Harmony, Maine for their first open house. Bartlett Yarn Mills are a working museum and I believe they are the last of their kind in the US. This is me on the right, with my incredible mother on the left, standing in front of their outlet store. My dear sister is behind the camera.My father used to work at this mill. We had the opportunity while here, to meet people who used to work with him and hear from them, wonderful stories about his antics. I miss him dearly since he passed, so this was very special for me. It was even more meaningful to me that I got to share it with Mom and my sister.

I was unable to go on the mill tour because of all the stairs. My sister kindly offered to take pictures of the mill while she and my mother went on the tour. There are many pictures, so I won't post them all here. If you are interested in looking at the pictures you are welcome to view my Flickr album. For more information about the mill, please check out their website. They do have their products available for purchase on the site.

Speaking of purchasing their products, I did a little of that while I was there. Surprise!!! LOL. While there, I met and decided to "adopt" Larry the Llama. I named him Larry, because that was my father's name and I like alliteration. He will be my blog mascot. Please, make him feel at home!Larry is resting on a few bags of rovings that happened to jump into the shopping bags with him. They are 8 oz. bags of the mills round rovings in the Blue Loch, Light Laurel and Mountain Laurel colorways. I also brought home 4 oz. of undyed pencil rovings that I forgot to photograph. I have been told that the mill plans on making the open house an annual event to take place the first week of August each year, in conjunction with the Maine Fiber Arts Tour. I plan on attending next year and hopefully, I will be better able to move, enabling me to tour the mill.

I want to share with you a craft that I was told about at the mill outlet. They said that there is a lady who comes in and buys 5 or more pounds of varied rovings, then takes them home to braid them. Once they are braided, she then tosses them in the washing machine to felt them. Get this, then she stitches them together into a braided rug!!! They say that it is gorgeous and very easy to do. My sister purchased some rovings with the intent of trying this out. I can't wait to see how it turns out!