It goes without saying that it’s difficult to make a good living in rural Maine. So I have to take off my Scribe’s hat to Janet Imelda Kennedy. She runs Imelda’s, a yarn and crafts store in New Sharon (Franklin County), and recently expanded to three floors in the weathered, riverside building.

Your Scribe initially wasn’t sure that owning a crafts store was adequately “robust” to qualify for mention in Cabin Country.

But then I reflected on how many women in Maine pursue crafts, especially knitting and weaving. I remembered my stop at the yarn, cotton and wool stalls at the Common Ground Fair, where the lines were long and the affections strong for manual creativity.

Or, where the winters are lengthy, interest in sedentary crafts is generally quite high.

A few things about Imelda's, which is located on the corner of Route 2 and Route 134: She took over a squash and tennis racquet manufacturing plant, which closed in the early ‘90s.

As a tennis player (and one old enough to have played with wood rackets), I went over to New Sharon on the day it closed. Modern players had turned to metal rackets, first in tennis and then in squash.

As I watched the elderly owner observe the final sale from across the street, I really did have the feeling that it was the end of an era. He had hung on, and was perhaps the last private maker of wood squash racquets in the country.

Then the building closed. Like most commercial edifices in New Sharon, it stayed empty for years. (An aside: Rural communities in Maine were much more vibrant a century ago, before the auto could take people out of town for shopping. Many former stores in New Sharon are apartments or they are empty.)

But Imelda’s opened three years ago, and appears to be thriving. She recently planted about two dozen marigolds around the building, so I figure she has to have some extra cash. (“You have to do something to get the cars to slow down, and notice the building,” she said).

Interesting note: She discovered about a dozen unfinished squash racquets, which she attached to a vertical pole. She displays hats on them now, and if you know the history of the building, it is a fine touch.

Imelda’s offers yarns, wools, polar fleece, and alpaca for the craftsperson. She also sells hats, vests, socks and many more things with which I am not conversant.

If the business crowd every wants to do a case study on creating commerce in rural Maine, they might consider consulting with those at Imelda’s. To turn an empty racqets factory into a thriving crafts center is one remarkable achievement.

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