swans island

This past week db and I went on an epic mountainous and biking road trip around New England and a little Canada. It was absolutely beautiful! While up there we went to Acadia National Park and I could see Swans Island across the water, land of perfect gorgeous wool. If you don't know about Swans Island Company yet, they're an amazing yarn and blanket company in Northport, Maine. Their yarn is organically processed, naturally dyed and made in the USA of merino wool from sheep who also live in Northport.

I've knit with Swans Island before, I got a bright bubblegum pink I turned into legwarmers as my first ever made up pattern years ago. I really liked it but haven't ever seen any outside of Maine. I wanted to get some as a yarn souvenir of our cold backwoods adventure vacation, so we decided to hit up a few stores listed as retailers on our way down the coast. When we were driving down the scenic part of route 1 all of the sudden db spotted a huge sign that said "Swans Island Blankets Showroom". We were going pretty quick and he was like "Do you want to stop?" "YES!", imagine that all crammed together into one word and then a cloud of dust as we veered off the road suddenly into their parking area. The coincidence of the whole thing was crazy, I had their site up on my phone looking for retailers and we just happened to drive by where it all goes down? So awesome.

We had zero idea what we were in for, the place was amazing. We were given the grand tour by Heidi who was great, she showed us all the different blankets and they have a bed on display so you can see what they look like in real bed related context which was funny and smart. They have all their yarns in all the colors and (best part) a side room of "tonal variations" full of yarn which the colors came out not quite exactly right... all of which are still totally beautiful. We even got to go in and see their four looms! Their dye studio is on site also, honestly it was a peek into my dream life.

You guys should check them out, I ended up getting these 6 gorgeous skeins from the tonal variations room and I can't even remember the last time I was this excited about a yarn purchase. I started out playing it cool with just the orange... but you know how it goes. How often do you get to do something like choose from ALL the yarn? And at the source? Plus I can't walk away from a warm mustard yellow, it's the best color. I love everything about this company and their yarns, it was so cool getting to see where it all happens. Best yarn souvenirs ever.