Photos of Prizes for the Podcaster Challenge

Most Altered Pattern:

KAL Group Award:

Best Yarn Choice:

The "Talkin' Smack" Award:

The "Suffered Through It" Award:

Favorite Special Guest Award:

The "Hot Mess" Award:

The "Super Knitter" Podcaster Award:

Most Creative Photography Award:

Visit to Bartlettyarns-Harmony, Maine

August 5th my sister, Krista, and I had the opportunity to visit a local yarn factory and were fortunate enough to get a tour of the mill. Tim, an employee of five years, was our guide and it was great fun and quite a learning experience.

The oldest machine at Bartlettyarns is dated back to the early 1800s and the newest machine is dated around 1948. It was so much fun to see how the fiber is taken from beginning to end.

You can see what wonderful yarns and rovings I purchased and I plan on making many more purchases through their online store at www.bartlettyarns.com. Check out their site. Their prices are great and the product is even better.

Heather from HighlandHandmades talks a lot of her trip to Bartlettyarns in a recent podcast and shows a hat she made her husband from their yarn http://www.thefiberistafiles.com/?m=201108. Katie from Knittin on the Fly also shows her sample yarn pack in her podcast http://knittinonthefly.blogspot.com/

A Clean Slate

Now we have to decide on whether to lift the house, crush the foundation and build a new one or brace the basement walls instead. The difference: $20,000.00. Hmmmmmm.

99 Snow Goose Lane

My husband and I purchased the camp across the street from the one we own now on a small lake in Maine. It belonged to a man who was sadly an alcoholic and he would only come up a few weekends a year and sat inside and drank all weekend. Well, he passed away last spring and his wife, who had never even seen the place, sold it to us. I got to look inside once during the summer but we didn't finally come to an agreement on price until December. That meant that we had to face the mess this summer. In the photograph of the kitchen that includes the stove: notice the lobster pot on top - it had 5 dead mice floating aroud in it. The beds were still unmade from the year before; the fridge was filled with beer and black mold.

There is so much work to do starting with the foundation. All four walls are cracked and damaged and we may have to lift the house and start from scratch. We are hoping to make it into a three season retirement home (we are 51 now and believe me it may take another 20 years to get this done). We paid cash for the property and are only using cash to redo it so it may be a slow process.

I thought I would post of a bunch of before, during and after photos so that you can watch the process and maybe even get some advice, tips, and, of course, sympathy from some of you.

Hope you stay tuned for the journey.