A new knitter...and some new needles

We have a new knitter in the family. Violet's great-grammy would be so proud of this seven-year-old.

When Violet visited us one weekend in late August, I showed her how to do the knit stitch only. That seemed to be enough for a learner to tackle before moving on to more complicated maneuvers with knitting needles.

Well, she went home and devoted herself to mastering the knit stitch. Her mom gave her lots of support by purchasing additional needles for her and by, herself, learning to cast-on for Violet's benefit.

Violet visited us again last weekend, bringing along her knitting needles and yarn. We sat down for another lesson. This time I showed her how to purl, knit two together, do a yarn over, and cast off. She loved seeing an actual pattern emerging as she knit one row, purled the next, knit 2 together followed by a yarn-over across the next row, and purled the fourth row. I also showed her how to read a very simple knitting pattern and how to keep track, with a pencil, of the rows being completed.

She caught on immediately. In fact, when she got up early Saturday morning, she immediately tackled her current project. I said to her, "Violet, Are you knitting?"

"No," she replied, "I'm purling."

Such a stickler for details!

She worked steadily on this four-row repeat the entire weekend.

Later on Saturday the three of us decided to go to the Montsweag Flea Market for one last visit before it closes for the season.

I wasn't terribly excited to go, because I find the Sunday vendors to be more interesting than the Saturday vendors, but I agreed to go, and Violet was excited to tag along with us.

Lo and behold, I struck it rich: a set of Boye Interchangeable Needles, new in their case, for $4. I couldn't believe it. I almost felt guilty taking them home for a mere $4. Boye Interchangeables retail for anywhere between $60 and $90.

Once we got home, Violet immediately looked through my yarn stash, selected a partial skein of purple yarn, helped herself to my new purple size 4 Boye Interchangeables, and asked me to cast on 25 stitches for her. She said she'll work on this new project the next time she visits us.

I didn't have the heart to tell her one chooses one's needles by their size, not by their color. That lesson will hold off for awhile.

Hiking Jockey Cap

In late August our great niece, Violet, came for a two-night sleepover, as she does regularly, and Ken suggested the three of us should hike Jockey Cap in Fryeburg during her visit.

Violet was up for the challenge, as she always is with outdoor activities. That girl loves nature and every living thing in it.

So we left home early in the morning and got to Jockey Cap about an hour later.

Jockey Cap isn't a mountain, it's a huge boulder with 600-ft elevation.

The climb is easy and quick. 

Except that Violet, as I said, loves all of nature's creatures, even the tiniest of them, so we stopped several times to watch crawly things in our path. Do you see the crawly thing here?

As we were about to continue our hike, Violet cautioned me with, "Don't step on it!"

Here Ken and Violet are almost at the summit. As you can see, we chose a clear, warm day for the hike, so the view was spectacular.

Here Uncle Ken lifts Violet to look at the map which identifies the various mountain peaks along the Maine-New Hampshire border.

It was a great little hike with our favorite seven-year-old.

Sex and bell peppers

(I knew the title of this post would grab your attention:)

Supposedly, green peppers with three "lobes" on the bottom are female, whereas those with four lobes are male.

Did you know that? I learned it just this summer and was reminded of it as I picked some peppers from my garden this morning.

But perhaps this "male-female" claim is a bunch of hogwash. I suspect it is.

Check out this site: http://showmeoz.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/the-bell-pepper-sex-scandal/

And then there are those like the four on the left with one bump. Male? Gender neutral?

Bottom line: I love green peppers and can't wait to include this morning's harvest in my fall cooking. I'll dice them, spread them on a cookie sheet and freeze them, then remove them from the cookie sheet and return them to the freezer in freezer bags. That way, the diced pieces aren't frozen together into unmanageable lumps.

Slow learner

It occurs to me this morning that if I'm going to have more than one blog post for the entire month of August, I'd better get crackin'.

I've been intending to whine about this Brynna cardigan project for a few weeks now. Here goes.

When I spotted the Brynna on Ravelry in late June, I knew I had to make it for my good friend, Lynn. This cardigan is so Lynn. It's lacy-looking and feminine and would be excellent for many of the social events in Lynn's life. And Lynn has social events in her life like nobody else I know.

I promptly went to the Chic Knits site, purchased the pattern, downloaded it, and made a bee-line for Rosemary's Yarn Shop in Windham. Rosemary's is one of the most complete yarn shops within a reasonable driving distance for me, and Rosemary herself knows all there is to know about knitting. I knew she could advise me on a perfect yarn for this project.

I was right. Rosemary advised me to purchase some Cascade Ultra Pima because it's the right weight for the cardigan and it has excellent drape. A pretty sweater isn't pretty if it doesn't have good "drape." I had envisioned a soft baby blue for the yarn, because baby blue is Lynn's color if ever a person had her own color, but there wasn't enough blue for the project. I chose white as the second option. Lynn looks good in white, too.

Soon I was casting on stitches and picturing the cardigan all but finished in no time.

I was wrong. About the "finished in no time," I mean. I started the sweater on July 1, and by July 15 I was still trying to get beyond the "Cast on" step. (This sweater has the most unusual design I've ever encountered, and I'm someone who has survived the strange design of the Baby Surprise Jacket, for crying out loud.)

 As I said above, my first hurdle appeared at the "Cast on 90 stitches" point. Try as I might, once the 90 stitches sat on my needle, I could NOT get the pattern repeats to come out right. I read the instructions

time and again, I raveled and cast on again, I put a stitch marker after every 12 stitches, to indicate where the repeats began and ended,...and I got nowhere. I was left with one extra stitch on the needle over and over again.

My sister said why not ditch the project and move on to something else. I said, "I paid $6 for this ^&$@# pattern and I'm going to learn how to knit it!" I neglected to tell her I'd also paid $60 for the yarn.

Out of desperation, I contacted four members of Ravelry who'd made this sweater and, apparently, survived it. Each kindly wrote back promptly and offered insight.

But I still wasn't "getting it."

As I final, desperate call for help, I e-mailed the designer herself. She promptly and graciously responded and finally, after two weeks of treading water, I was off and knitting.

Then I came to the confusing "Fold item wrong side facing and do a 3-needle bind-off of the first 44 stitches on each needle." What????

I contacted the designer again, saying I simply couldn't visualize this step. She generously sent me a diagram of what the folding and binding-off should look like.

I proceeded with nary a hitch, or at least nary a major one, from that point on. Finally, in early August, I finished the Brynna cardigan. I was amazed at how well it came out, given all the tears, teeth gnashing, sweat, and curses involved in the creation of it.

What is so weird about this cardigan's design is that the left half, front, back, and sleeve, is knitted in its entirely before you pick up stitches along the center of the back and then knit the right half, front, back and sleeve.

What's even weirder is that I'm now knitting Brynna #2, in a soft sage green, for myself. I don't have the social life that Lynn has, but I know a pretty cardigan when I see one, and I want one of these hanging in my closet.

Anniversary cruise on the Maine coast

Our 43rd wedding anniversary was Thursday, August 15, so we decided to celebrate it by taking a little boat cruise from Portland up the coast to Bailey Island. It's a trip we'd been wanting to take, and Thursday gave us perfect weather to be out on the water.

We arrived at Casco Bay Lines bright and early in order to make sure we got tickets for that particular day's trip. After tucking the tickets into our pockets, we took a little foot tour of the Old Port area. It was interesting to see the waterfront come alive to retailers, although the fishermen and lobstermen had been up for hours.

This is Portland's United States Custom House. I think it's a beautiful building.

Casco Bay Lines' boats take on passengers from various gates here. Most of the boats are also car ferries, taking residents out to their homes in Casco Bay or taking summer visitors to their rentals.

Our boat tour left the dock at 10:00 a.m. sharp. Here we are pulling away from Portland Harbor.

As we left Portland behind, we could see the famous Portland Head Light, the most photographed lighthouse in the world. I've seldom seen it from this angle.

I wouldn't mind owning a sailboat such as this and spending my summers on the water!

This is Robert E. Peary's summer home on Eagle Island. Peary is the Peary of North Pole fame. He grew up in Portland and attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick. The island to the left of this one is where he trained his dogs for their North Pole trek.

Two hours after leaving Portland, after a beautiful trip around numerous islands and after dodging hundreds of colorful lobster buoys, we arrived at Bailey Island. This osprey nest greeted us.

We and the other passengers are about to disembark. The people lined up on the wharf are waiting for us to leave the vessel so they can take a two-hour cruise around the nearby islands while we have lunch.

This is our little boat, the "Island Romance."

Rather than eating at the closest restaurant, Cook's, Ken and I decided to walk a short distance to Morse's Cribstone Grill. We were glad we did. We ate at a table on this long walkway.

I ordered a lobster roll, sweet potato fries, and cole slaw. Absolutely delicious.

Here we are, our tummies full, about to head back to the boat.

First, though, we decided to take a walk on the famous Cribstone Bridge. According to Ken, this is the only cribstone bridge in the world. It's made of granite slabs, spaced so the tide can ebb and flow through it. The bridge connects Orr's and Bailey Islands.

There's our little boat again, as seen from the Cribstone Bridge.

It was now time to board the boat and head back to Portland Harbor. We took a slightly different route on the way back and saw more islands with lovely summer homes.

We arrived back in port feeling exhausted from a full day on the ocean. It was a good exhaustion, though, the kind that only a day breathing salt air can create. The Bailey Island Cruise was a perfect way to celebrate forty-three years of marriage.

Wool Dryer Balls

Here's a nifty little trick if you're tired of using fabric dryer sheets or fabric softener in your laundry, or you're worried about the toxic chemicals in dryer sheets, or you've actually had a physical reaction to the dryer sheets (My doctor tells me certain brands of dryer sheets are known to cause vaginal irritation)...

Wool, handmade dryer balls!

They're so simple to make, they do a great job of fluffing your clothes in the dryer, and they last almost forever.

All you do is purchase 100% wool yarn. I like Paton's Classic Wool for felting projects, and these dryer balls will be felted. Paton's Classic Wool is sold at Michael's, AC Moore, and other big-box craft stores. I also like Fisherman's Wool, also sold at these stores. (I seldom go to craft stores without first going to their websites and printing out a 40% off coupon, so theoretically you could make a set of these wool balls for under $5 or so.)

Wind the yarn tightly into balls about the size of a baseball. Use a needle to work the loose end into the center of the ball so the ball doesn't ravel.

Make 5-6 balls, secure them tightly in an old nylon stocking, and throw them into your washer with a pair of jeans or some blouses or something-anything to increase the amount of agitation in the tub. (If you toss them into the washer without securing them, separated from one another, in a nylon, you'll find a huge mess of tangled yarn in the washer when the wash cycle ends. It'll be nicely felted, I'm sure, but it will be useless.)

Put them through a full wash cycle, then put them through a dryer cycle.

The balls should be nicely felted by now. In other words, the strands of yarn are bound together and the balls cannot come undone. Remove the nylon stocking by cutting the sections of it apart, thus releasing the balls.

Now, each time I use my clothes dryer, I listen to the wool balls happily bouncing about and fluffing the clothes.

According to others who have made wool dryer balls, these balls cut down on drying time by as much as 40%. I haven't had a good chance to test this claim yet because I'm from the use-the-clothesline-outdoors-in-good-weather school of thought. I have, however, put line-dried clothes into the dryer, with the balls, to fluff them before putting them away.

If you'd like to scare yourself silly regarding the toxicity of fabric softener and dryer sheets, read this or this or simply google "fabric dryer sheets" and you'll find many other links that will do the trick.

If you'd like better instructions on making the wool dryer balls, go here or here  or simply google "wool dryer balls."

No, you don't need to know how to knit or crochets to make wool dryer balls. You simply need to know how to wind a string into a ball.

Try them. I think you'll like 'em.

Mother of Purl yarn shop

A couple of weeks ago my good friend Lynn asked me if I'd like to go with her to a new yarn shop in Freeport, Maine.

Was she kidding?! Of course I'd like to go with her.

I'd never heard of this particular yarn shop, although it's been open almost a year and I've been to Freeport for LL Bean shopping several times since last August.

It's a great shop, chock full of wonderful yarns.

And completed projects.

And more yarn. And books and pamplets.

And more completed projects.

And notions.

And a warm and friendly owner, back-to in this photo.

I wanted to stay all day, but Lynn was in a rush to get back home, so we stayed about 30 minutes.

I'll be going back there soon. It's only an hour from my house, after all.