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.

A Visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

We'd been promising our good friends, Jim and Lynn, we'd take them out to dinner to celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary ever since their anniversary...which was December 28.

What with one thing and another: too cold, too many other events going on, too lazy to set a date, etc., we kept putting off the actual doing.

Then I had a brainstorm: Why not take them on a full-day outing? Nothing's better than Maine in the summer, so we had plenty of activities from which to choose.

We finally settled on taking them, early in the morning, to the Montsweag Flea Market in Woolwich, then on to the botanical gardens in Boothbay, then to a restaurant in Boothbay Harbor for lunch.

So that's what the four of us did on a recent Saturday.

We couldn't have asked for better weather for the outing: clear blue skies and comfortable warmth.

 I've blogged about Montsweag before, so I won't go into that now, but I don't think I've ever mentioned the beautiful Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

They're about 1 3/4 hours from our home in southern Maine. They're "up the coast," or "Down East," in other words.

The gardens opened in 2007, so they haven't existed all that long, but boy, are they spectacular.

What's not to like about 248 acres of meticulously landscaped and groomed gardens? And excellent architecture housing their Visitor Center, their Education Center, and their administrative offices?

The gardens are divided into various smaller gardens: the Rose and Perennial Garden, the Great Lawn and Ledge Garden, the Lerner Garden of the Five Senses, etc.

My favorite, I think, is the Children's Garden. It was in the beginning stages of construction when Ken and I last visited, so we were delighted to see it in completed form. It's extensive and whimsical and full of activities for children.

I loved the grass-covered roof on the small building to the left and below. I'd love to have that building in my own flower garden.

The Children's Garden has ropes for climbing, hens and chickens for feeding, fish in a pond for watching, a Story Barn, a Coloring Cottage, and even fairy houses.

This critter is under water in the Children's Garden.

Here Ken and Jim meditate in the Meditation Garden, or maybe they're just resting their feet.

Here we are after our two-hour walkabout in the gardens.

This is the Garden of the Five Senses. As you can see, visitors bring their cameras and take many close-ups.

This is Waterfall Landing. Pretty, isn't it?

After a visit to the Rhododendron Garden, which was the only disappointing area since the rhododendrons were just past their full bloom, we stopped at the Garden Gift Shop. It's a wonderful gift shop, full of gardening items as well as many Maine-made crafts. (I came home with a pretty handmade seaglass bracelet). I'd love to go back there to do some Christmas shopping.

There is also a Kitchen Garden Cafe where we could have had lunch. I've heard good things about it.

But we'd already decided to drive into Boothbay Harbor for lunch. We chose the Tugboat Inn Restaurant and enjoyed delicious lobster rolls.

Celebrating a December anniversary in June isn't such a bad idea!

Eastern Europe: the final photos!

 Let's wind up this trip once and for all, shall we? It's now approaching the end of June and I want to move on to other topics.

So...Here's Hungary's Parliament in Budapest, photo taken while on a cruise on the Danube.

Prague

Yours truly and the mister, taken on Castle Hill, Budapest.

Hungarian paprika is world-renown. This is paprika peppers drying in Szentendre. 

 

Musicians at a Hungarian dinner. The violinist coud make that violin obey his every command! Amazing.

Of course I did some knitting during the days of long rides by coach.

Poppies line the highways of Austria.

We attended a Mozart/Strauss concert while in Vienna.

The famous Astronomical Clock in Prague. Folks jam the square to see it strike on the hour.

Children folk dancing in Prague.

Prague, entering the Old City.

And finally, a brief stop in Dresden, Germany, for lunch while on our way back to Berlin before our flight home the next day.