With a grandbaby on the the way and not wanting to be out of town, Jane asked if I would help (wo)man the Schacht booth at TNNA. This meant that I would be reunited with my fabulous pal Stephanie and get to scope out the latest and greatest in yarn. Um, yes please.
 
So off I went to Columbus, Ohio. Cool town from what little I have seen the two times I have been there. We were so busy, we barely had time to walk the show floor. My very favorite discovery was the Artemis/Hanah Silk booth. They hand dye silk ribbon in the most amazing colors and color combinations you can imagine. Plus, the gal who does the dyeing was there, and she was a real sweetheart. Ivy Brambles had some beautifully dyed yarns, and they are a stone's throw away in New Hampshire. I like local. My love of The Fibre Company yarns was also reaffirmed. Art Yarns has an achingly soft cashmere yarn. They source it from Italy and dye it themselves, and I wanted to take one of every color home. 

Bartlettyarns smells yummy

When I was growing up, my great-grandmother, GG, used to knit me wonderful things. Sweaters, mittens, balaclavas (hey - when you're a kid growing up with Maine winters, you need as many layers of warmth as possible so you can stay outside all day building the ultimate snow fort). I would pick out a pattern and some yarn, and a few weeks later, a new sweater would be delivered to my doorstep. The local yarn shop stocked a great selection of Bartlettyarns, spun in Harmony, Maine since since 1821, and because they had such wonderful colors, this is what I usually chose. The yarn had a very distinct smell to it - a cozy, wooly sort of smell that I will forever associate with my GG. Recently my aunt sent me a box of yarn from GG's house, and in it I found small leftover bits of yarn from all of the sweaters she knit for me, still smelling faintly as I remembered.
 
So when I decided I wanted to weave some fabric to make myself a wool jacket, I emailed Bartlett and requested a color card. It arrived in short order, and the colors were just as wonderful as I remembered them to be. I planned out my project, placed my order, and they shipped out my yarn immediately. When the box arrived and I opened it up, the smell was exactly the same as I remembered. The dark brown heathered yarn has the most amazing little flecks of color. Off to warp the loom to make my GG jacket!

New yarns from Purl Diva

Even though I'm living in Massachusetts, Maine holds the tightest grip on my heart when it comes to the fiber arts. My GG used to knit me sweaters when I was growing up using Bartlettyarns, spun in Maine. I came across some the other day, and that smell made memories of her flood right back. When I was nine, I took knitting lessons at a little shop in Bridgeton, Maine. The woman who owned the shop had shelves of the stuff. It's amazing how smells can be so vivid after such a long period of time. Apparently my yarn sniffing addiction is deep rooted.