Once again at row 39

I'm officially back to where I was before with the Mondo Cable Pulli: row 39.

It took me only three days to get back to this point.

I was making what I thought to be rapid progress with this knitting project until I came to row 9:

Shape neckline, bodice, and sleeves:

Increase 1 st after and before neckline edging sts as est every other RSR 0 [zero, for my size] more times, then every RSR 13 times AND AT THE SAME TIME increase as est at bodice and sleeve markers every RSR 3 more times, then every other RSR 6 times, then every RSR 7 times.

What???????????????

When I first came to this point in the directions, I broke into a cold sweat. I had no idea what I was being told to do. So I put down my knitting until the next morning, when supposedly my head would be clearer.

Again I read the directions. Still no lightbulb moment. I went to Ravelry.com, typed in "Mondo Cable Pulli" and clicked "Projects." I read of other knitters who'd made this pullover.

Many of them mentioned the difficulty with the directions in row 9, so at least I wasn't alone.

Then one mentioned "going to the discussion board" and finding help there. I pondered that for awhile and finally decided to see if there might be a discussion board on this sweater pattern on Ravelry. There is.

I read what I thought were helpful instructions for conquering Row 9 and decided I had it figured out. I forged ahead.

Then two days ago, right in the middle of row 39, when I least expected it, I had an epiphany. Suddenly I understood, clearly, the directions for row 9. And what I should have been doing for the last 30 rows wasn't what I had been doing.

I raveled all 39 rows, cast on again, and knit to row 7. But I wasn't sure I'd made one of the stitches correctly, so I raveled back to the beginning again, cast on again....and I'm now at row 39 for the second time.

I think I have it right this time. It's not that the directions at row 8 are difficult; it's just that they're poorly written. Add to that the fact that the model wearing the sweater on the cover of the directions has her long red tresses covering the v-neck design. If a knitter could see the v-neck more clearly, then the directions at row 9 would make sense, or at least make sense sooner. If, however, I had long, red tresses like the model's, I'd probably want to show them off, too.

I hope I've got it right. Time will tell. Meanwhile, I've ordered the Silvalume Handi Tool and can't wait to add it to my arsenal of knitting utensils.

Flowers, yarn, etc.

I've been meaning to mention my visit to Kaleidoscope Yarns while Ken and I were in the Burlington, VT, area for the early June wedding I mentioned in a previous post. I'd been dying to see this yarn shop, and whenever I'm in a new area, Ken knows it's inevitable that I'll ask to stop at any and all yarn shops.

Kaleidoscope looked downright yummy on its website, so I originally made a mental note to remind myself (as if I'd forget!) I'd need to go there at the end of this July, when we're in the Burlington area for a conference. But then the June wedding came up, and I just couldn't wait any longer to see this yarn shop.

So one morning good ol' Ken, who knows when something is a must for me and always makes it happen, drove me to Essex Junction and Kaleidoscope Yarns.

I wasn't disappointed. Four rooms full of delicious yarns, tons of patterns, oodles of knitted samples, and even the beloved Bryson Fix-It Tool, which I'd been wanting to get my hands on. (I've used it several times since purchasing it and feel it's worth every penny. I wish it were available with a smaller needle, like a 4 maybe, on one end and a smaller hook on the other. But I digress.)

The reason I decided I'd better fire off a blog post about this yarn shop right here and now is that I received an e-mail from them about 30 minutes ago, announcing they're offering FREE SHIPPING to all US addresses from now through June 30. Not a bad deal! Just use code FSSUMMER to get the free shipping. (Are you reading this post, Linda??) Actually their normal shipping rate isn't bad: $4.95 on all orders under $75, free shipping on orders over $75, but free shipping on any order is even better.

So that's the first thing I wanted to mention.

Second, yesterday on the Today Show, a clever lady showed how to make attractive flower arrangements out of not much of anything. I was struck by her using hosta leaves, which grow in abundance around our house. So today, while out doing my errands, I trotted into AC Moore with my 40% off coupon in hand, selected a low, square vase, which I'd been craving anyway, bought it for $8 minus 40%, brought it home, cut some hosta leaves, cut two stems of whatcha-ma-callits...ah! primrose. (I knew it would come to me.) Cut a tiger lily. And voila! I have an arrangement on the coffee table. I pulled the dust off the stamens of the lily, a la Martha Stewart's hint a few years ago, so as to avoid dark orange dust, which stains miserably, on my doily.
So there you have it.

And finally, my purple Jackmani clematis vines are in bloom. I always look forward to this event.

They're blooming earlier than usual this year, which is par for the course in this area for 2010. I have five purple Jackmani clematis vines, but this one in the photo is the most showy. The only problem is, the blossoms are blooming delightfully on the backside of my little picket fence! Why they're hiding from public view, I don't know. Shy, I guess, although I haven't known them to be shy in previous years.

I have two other varieties of clematis, one which has gone by already and one which will come into bloom next week, from the looks of its bulging buds. I do love clematis vines.

A friend told me recently that she's "tearing up" all of her perennial beds because she's sick of the care they require. I almost had a stroke when she made this announcement. Yes, perennials require work, and I'm no fan of weeding, but I love going out to my flowers in the summer and putting together an arrangement of some kind.

Oh, here's the shy clematis vine. Almost forgot to include it.

Shhhh! Peasy's blocking.

This morning I put the finishing touches on my Peasy cardigan. This is a sweater I haven't enjoyed knitting, so it's a relief to be able to say it's now done, except for its buttons.

Never again will I knit an adult-sized sweater with DK weight yarn on sizes 4 and 5 needles. Never. It's been a long chore, and I had moments when I thought the chore would never end.

I gave Peasy a good soaking in Eucalan, took her upstairs to a guest bed, laid her out on a dry towel, and worked her into the shape she should be. Now I'll give her a couple of days to dry thoroughly before adding the buttons.

I discovered, while knitting the bottom edge of Peasy, that I'd made a mistake knitting the cuff edges of each sleeve. I'd wondered why the sleeves seemed to have such an unfinished look, and come to find out, the fault was mine! So after finishing the sweater, technically, I raveled a bit of each sleeve and reknit them correctly.

But now for the fun to begin. Mondo cable pullover, here I come. Not five minutes after I'd shut the bedroom door on Peasy, I was grabbing my six hanks of good Vermont wool, the winder, and the swift, and I was soon in business at the kitchen counter.

Late this afternoon I'll get out the size needles called for in the Mondo pattern and do a swatch to check my gauge. I always hate taking the time to do a gauge check, and with some knitted items I don't bother, but with a sweater I must, if I hope to have a pullover that fits me once it's done.

I've been thinking all day about starting Mondo. I can't wait. Meanwhile I've watered the garden (We could use a good, soaking rain.), given fertilizer to the tomatoes, green peppers, squashes, and cukes, and trimmed the miniature lilac bush which has been looking very UN-miniature lately. I don't want it to get too tall, or it will block my kitchen window view of my bird feeder, the one the cardinals enjoy.

Now I must go outside again and trim the bridal wreath bushes. In another couple of hours I can start Mondo.

Oh, about its color. When I chose the Mondo yarn, I first grabbed it in blue. Just as I was about to pay for it, I said, "No, I always choose blue yarn. I'm going to swap this for something else." So I went back to the yarn display and chose green. I was very happy with myself.

Then I went to our car, where that darn Peasy sat in my knitting bucket...and I realized the new yarn I'd just bought is almost exactly the same color as Peasy. Foiled again.

Travel knitting...NOT!

Before we left for South Asia in early May, I came across the pattern for the Peasy sweater. I immediately decided I had to make it, and even worse, that I had to work on it while traveling to, in, and from Singapore and China.

Stupid me.

Why I thought I could tackle a new pattern, and a pattern with a rather intricate upper bodice design, I'll never know. (Maybe it was all of those raves on Ravelry which claimed the pattern is "easy.")

But think that I did, and the day before our flight from Boston I was headed to Rosemary's Yarns, a great yarn shop in Windham, to select my yarn. With the help of Rosemary herself, who knows all there is to know about yarns, I chose Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool in a sage green (officially, it's called "basil." I love basil.)
I was happy. I could start the Peasy sweater and, with luck, have it done before we returned to

Maine at the end of May.

I didn't have luck.

I cast on the sweater the evening before our flight; I knit from Boston to Chicago; I knit sporadically from Chicago to somewhere over the Pacific; I knew something was wrong.

I inspected the sweater's beginnings once we got to Singapore; I contemplated what I should do; I tried to think of ways to correct whatever the problem was without raveling the entire 3-4 inches of neck edge and beginning leaf design,...and finally two days after arriving in Singapore, I raveled the entire thing.

Then I dug deeply into my suitcase and pulled out the sock yarn and pattern that I'd brought along, just in case. At the same time, I buried the Peasy yarn deeply in the suitcase so I wouldn't have to see it or think about it until we got back to Maine.

Sock knitting is much more sensible for travel, for me at least. I don't have to pile a lot of yarn onto my lap and I don't have to try to learn a new pattern because I've knit probably twenty or thirty pairs of socks over the last five years and I almost have the steps memorized.

It took me about a week after returning home to face Peasy again. This time I kept extremely detailed notes of where I was in the pattern at any given moment. I've been slogging along with it since late May, and it's nearly done.

It's a rather weird pattern, to my thinking, because although it's a neck-down pattern (I love neck-d0wn knitting), the sleeves are finished before the body of the sweater is completed. I suppose I could have finished the body first, but I didn't dare wander from the directions, given my earlier disaster at knitting this design.

What's making it a chore for me to finish Peasy is this matter: While traveling to Vermont in early June, with Peasy in the car with me so I could knock off a few more rows, we stopped at a farmers' market in Danville, VT. We actually stopped to find a food vendor selling something we could have for lunch, but I immediately spotted a vendor selling yarn. (See second photo: What knitter could resist buying some of this yarn, really?) I bought enough skeins to make this sweater, and I can't wait to start it. This pullover, if all goes well, will be perfect for cold winter days here in Maine.

So while my needles are working on Peasy, my heart's with Mondo.

The Forbidden City and the Summer Palace

Our first full day in Beijing, we hired a taxi and drove to the Forbidden City. Located in the heart of Beijing, the palace is like no other in the world. For instance, you might think that this first photo shows you the palace, but that's not true. The Forbidden City consists of one palace leading to another directly behind it, then to another behind it, and so on. It consists of 90 palaces and courtyards, 980 buildings and 8,704 rooms. To represent the supreme power of the emperor given from God, and the place where he lived being the center of the world, all the gates, palace and other structures of the Forbidden City were arranged about the south-north central axis of Beijing. (Quotation taken from the site linked above.)

Since it was a Tuesday in mid-May, I'd thought that maybe, just maybe we'd be two of the few tourists to visit the City that day. Wrong! Nonetheless, we enjoyed our morning at the Forbidden City and found many of the buildings opened; they'd been closed when we were there in 2005-6 due to renovations prior to the 2008 Olympics. For the first time I was able to see garments and jewelry from the early Chinese dynasties. I always enjoy seeing the handcrafts of any period.

Just before we left the Forbidden City, I suddenly remembered my plan to photograph my current knitting project, a simple sock, while there. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, photographs her knitting wherever she goes, so I decided to play copycat. I did manage to get this photo of the sock, which is actually the second of a pair, but I kept forgetting to photograph it at other sites in the Beijing area. I was really disgusted with myself when I realized I'd forgotten to photograph it at the Great Wall, of all places! I mean, really, how many socks-in-the-works can claim to have been to the Great Wall???!! My sock was at the Great Wall, but it stayed in my travel tote the entire time it was there.

Our final, big sight-seeing tour while in Beijing was to the Summer Palace. The Palace itself had been closed when we were there before, again due to renovations for the Olympics, but this time everything was open.

The grounds of the Palace are, by themselves, well worth visiting, and the local residents seem to enjoy going there to walk and picnic.

Ken and I walked from near this boat to around the lake and up to the palace. We climbed and climbed various sets of stairs and thought we'd climbed to the summit, but as we sat and rested we spotted folks up in a tower above us.

We took the lazy route back to the entrance gates, buying a ticket to ride the boat across the lake, then hiking only a short distance to the gates.

So that, in a nutshell, is our trip to China. I've left out so much that I wanted to share, and maybe I'll do a later post of odds and ends from our trip. Meanwhile, it's summer in Maine, my flower gardens are blooming, my vegetable gardens are looking promising (despite the deer I saw at the edge of the woods by one garden yesterday....) and there are summer stories to tell.

Thank you for sticking with me on this trip, and thank you even more for taking the time to leave a comment. I do read and appreciate your comments!

(The header photo is of just one of the many painted designs on the ceilings of various walkways at the Summer Palace.)

Climbing (gasp!) the Great Wall

One item on our must-do list while in Beijing was to take a day trip out to the Great Wall and hike as much of it as possible.

We'd hiked the Great Wall at BaDaLing, also near Beijing, but wanted to hike a different section of it this time.

So we made reservations with a tour guide and his driver and, along with a friendly couple from India, set out for the Great Wall one sunny, clear morning.

Mercy. Was this climb ever rugged. I knew we were in for a challenge the minute we arrived and looked up at our goal, the second tower. It might not look terribly steep in these photos but trust me, it was steep.

I huffed and puffed and gasped and paused to rest frequently. Ken did likewise, although I think he was actually having a bit easier time of it than I was.

Here's one of the photos I dared take as I turned around and looked behind us. Ever been on stairs so steep that you feel as if you'll tumble forward as you look down at the base? That's how I felt during this climb.

And here we are at the first tower. Why I'm smiling, I don't know, unless it's from lack of oxygen to my brain.

Climbing the Great Wall is difficult under any circumstances, but with this section so steep, and with the steps being of various heights, I think I'm cured of the desire to ever climb it again. By the way, we made it only to the first tower, not the second.

It was a good day's adventure, however, and I'm definitely glad I lived to tell about it.

OK, Back to China

Early this spring as Ken and I were planning our trip back to China, one thing we agreed we wanted to do for sure was once again climb Qingcheng. Qingcheng is a mountain about two hours west of Chengdu, and it is the seat of Daoism.

When we got to Chengdu, we inquired about the condition of Qingcheng. We knew the devastating earthquake of 2008 had occurred at or near this mountain, so we weren't sure whether the hiking trails were still open. We were told we probably wouldn't have any trouble hiking Qingcheng again.

We hired our usual driver and his car, and at 8:30 promptly we set out for Qingcheng.

As we traveled the countryside approaching Qingcheng, the only evidence of the earthquake we could spot was a house tipping precariously at a 45-degree angle. We did see piles of rubble here and there, but in China one always sees piles of rubble here and there because buildings are constantly being demolished and rebuilt.

Arriving at Qingcheng, things appeared to be normal. It wasn't long, however, before we realized things were far from normal. Apparently the eastern side of the mountain was badly destroyed in the quake. It was impassable. We were not surprised to see the usual men toting supplies up the mountain on their backs, but now they were not toting baskets of food supplies and other smaller items: they were toting baskets of huge rocks, cement, gravel, even propane tanks! They were carrying supplies to rebuild the hiking trails of Qingcheng. That was pretty sobering. Their hiking sticks double as seats when they stop to rest; they simply sit on the "T" of the stick.

After attempting to follow the hiking path we were familiar with, we finally admitted it was impassable and decided to hike UP our usual DOWN route.

This allowed us to hike nearly to the top, but we reached a point where we had to admit defeat and turn around to head back down the mountain.

It was disappointing not to be able to make the complete hike of Qingcheng, but at least we got to spend some time there one last time and take in the tranquility of the place.
We were in the company of many other hikers, for the Chinese do love their excursions on this mountain.

As you can see from the top photo, if you don't care to make the hike on foot, or if your health doesn't allow for such a strenous hike, you can hire two men with a sling contraption to carry you up and down the mountain! The total cost of this means of conveyance is only a few yuan, probably less than a dollar, maybe less than 50 cents.

Ken and I are hardy Mainers, though, so we enjoy a good physical challenge.

After two and a half hours at the mountain, it was time to head back to Chengdu. Our driver, a bit of a daredevil behind the wheel, soon had the speedometer up to 140 km/h, which translates to over 85 mph. Ken dozed off during the ride, but I, fearing we might be about to face death, decided I'd better stay awake for the occasion. Luckily I was wrong and we arrived in Chengdu safely.

(Wow. I didn't realize until just now, when I did a google search to find the link above to the China earthquake of 2008, that we returned to Qingcheng on its two-year anniversary, exactly. The quake occurred on May 12, 2008; as you can see from the date on my photos, we were there May 12, 2010.)

The boat in the header photo sits on a little lake near the base of the mountain. It used to convey hikers across the lake, but we found it now sitting idle.

Time out for a Vermont wedding

(I'll finish the China writings soon, I hope, but first I must tell you about the wedding we attended this past week.)

On Wednesday Ken and I left early for Waterbury, Vermont. Waterbury and its neighbor, Stowe, are located southeast of Burlington in a beautiful area of the state. I guess most areas of Vermont are beautiful, but this area is especially so. We'd never been to Waterbury or Stowe until this week. The drive from our home took about four hours.

The wedding was held Thursday evening at Hen of the Wood restaurant. Wow! What a picture-perfect location for a small, intimate wedding, what an amazing back-drop for a wedding on the patio, and what amazing food.

When we received the wedding invitation a month or two ago, I wondered why the restaurant was named "Hen of the Wood." That seemed to me to be a rather unusual name for a restaurant...or any establishment. A few days later I was watching a show on a cooking channel, and the host was out foraging for wild mushrooms. His day was made when he spotted a rare and especially prized "hen of the woods" mushroom. Who knew.

This was the view behind the bride and groom, Janessa and Erik, as they said their vows on the restaurant's back patio.

Erik is the older son of our very special friends, Jim and Lynn. We've known Erik since the day he was born. He's one of the finest human beings I know, always kind and thoughtful. Ken and I were thrilled to be invited to his wedding, given that the guest list included only sixteen family and friends.

I had to snap this picture of Erik, on the right, with his brother, Karl. They're showing off their pink-and-purple argyle socks. Their matching ties, with pink and purple, had already been selected when the guys decided coordinating socks were a must. Karl phoned his mother and asked her to try to find some socks "with pink and purple in them, maybe even an argyle." When Lynn told me of this assignment, I thought, "What are the chances, really, of finding pink and purple argyle socks?"

Lynn went to Macy's and there, waiting for her, were pink and purple argyle socks on sale. The rest is history.

Here are the bride and groom. What a couple! They'll move from San Francisco to Washington, DC, this summer, where Erik will begin a two-year course at George Washington University to become a physician assistant. He's perfectly suited to this field.

Best wishes for a wonderful life together, Erik and Janessa.