It was a snowy, sunny and hugely happy day, celebrating the 90th birthday of one of Boothbay’s dedicated knitters by her happy companions in the craft who foregather with her each Tuesday to create wonders of wool from blankets to clothing to toys, to wear or to donate.

This particular group has wandered from its beginnings in MacNab’s barn and then Teahouse, to the little red schoolhouse on River Road and finally found a home in the fabric room of the Community Center.

Mary Pat Young, the birthday celebrant, in turn, had made her way to Maine in the year 2000 with total determination to make her forever home in Boothbay, the place she had spent her honeymoon five decades before. Her joy therein, and in her handiwork and in her companions at the knitting circle, inspired a typically Boothbay event: A plan to celebrate her, her presence, and her years surrounded by her friends.

Some twenty came — some from as far away as their winter digs in the south, to celebrate with her at the Oak Street Cafe where the proprietor, Karen Landry, prepared the kind of varied feast that would appeal to a gathering of such different tastes — from dieters to foodies; and ages: the Birthday Girl was indeed the eldest, but the youngest was still in early teens -- and from vegeterians to omnifeasters. The one common denominator of the celebration was laughter, except for the occasional tear shed by Mary Pat. Guests moved from table to table to share time with friends in the two rooms beautifully set up to enable that movement. Everyone’s gift to her was a ficus tree, set up with Christmas lights … in honor of Pat keeping her own real tree still alive at home. She doesn’t like Christmas to be over!

But the piece de resistance of the party was a birthday cake like none other — just as the birthday celebrant is like no other. The cake was decorated with frosting made into balls of yarn surrounding the whole enormous cake, and two special such balls raising their “yarn” to the “knitting needles” wielded by the figure seated on a throne in the midst of the cake. Who knew that icing could become yarn and toothpick-sized needles could actually seem to knit them. “Hannaford made this cake?” one guest asked in disbelief. Indeed, Hannaford did — or rather their premier cake decorator, Lauren Allen, did, even coming late the night before the party from her work elsewhere to make it. Everyone was determined to make this the birthday party of the year as Boothbay celebrated almost a century of creativity and glee.

Boothbay does things voluptuously well: Happy birthday, Pat!