Fryeburg Fiber

The Fryeburg Fair has a big fiber exhibit. Of course Arlene and I wanted to spend some time there.

One (well, perhaps not; we’ve spent a lot of time around Maine by now) strange thing is that we’re beginning to know people around this state. One of the exhibitors at the fiber center was the woman from whom I bought the super-bulky hand-dyed yarn from Montana at the Denmark sheepfest, so I said hello and told here I had made a good warm hat from it.

Linda Whiting of Pinestar Studio was setting up the first row of weaving on a tiny tapestry loom, using a crochet hook to make a chain to weave against. When she showed me a 4 x 5 inch tapestry she had just done on that loom, something clicked and I said I had seen her merino ram tapestry somewhere on the web. She had a big display board standing on the floor next to her table with pictures of the tapestry in all stages, from the original photo through a picture from the back showing all the loose ends.

Someone we hadn’t met yet, Karen Smith of Shearbrooke Farm, 400 Saco Road, Standish ME, 642-3067, email shearbrooke at adelphia dot net, was weaving on an inkle loom. Arlene’s Aunt Lee had taught us about inkle looms 35 years ago, and I used to build them to sell in Cambridge. We had a long talk with Karen about them. We didn’t buy a book she recommended about them, but at least we have her contact information here.

In the crafts building we saw Sharon Deerfield of Black Swan spinning & knitting. She was too busy plying some violet yarn on her wheel to notice us the first time we went around, but when I went back to try again to say hello she was looking up. She’s been at the fair all week and hasn’t done a lot of business.

Also in the crafts building was Lisa Pyburn of Rolling Knolls Farm, 137 Hampshire Street, Hiram ME, 625-7198. She had some beautiful hand dyed yarns. Her exhibit had several scarves that I couldn’t figure out at all. They looked almost more woven in a twill weave than knit. That didn’t make sense, because looms don’t weave on the bias. Crochet? No, they didn’t look like that either. She showed me the pattern, knit on size 15 needles: purl 2 together but don’t drop the stitches off the needle, then purl back into the first stitch, then drop both stitches, all the way across; on the knit row, knit the first and last stitches, in between, slip, knit, knit back into the slipped stitch. I watched her do a whole row in each direction and maybe I can do it. At any rate, I had Arlene pick out a hank of her yarn so I’ll try to make one of those scarves. She worked on 30 stitches and used 200 yards of yarn. The hank is more like 170 yards so she thought maybe 26 stitches to get a good length scarf.