A March Birthday

I had a birthday! My boyfriend took me to Boston:



Where he had reserved a table for us at Rowes Wharf for an elegant Afternoon Tea overlooking the water:



It was an incredible tea, with rose petals on the table and champagne, along with the best tea and scones with Devonshire cream...

Afterward we wandered a bit down Newbury Street and visited a yarn shop:



and I didn't leave empty-handed:


Koigu, Farm-spun 100% cashmere, and Artyarns Silk Purse 100% silk

(I think I'll make the Linen Stitch Scarf from Churchmouse Yarns and Teas with these yarns)

When I came home I had wonderful presents from my best friends:



Yes, that IS a bar with chocolate and potato chips!!



My friend send me a WHOLE BOX of bags she had made! I love this one especially but they're all wonderful.

I love March.

I knit on the Ocean

Every year, my boyfriend's parents visit Maine in May. This year, we went. A little too early for crowds of summer tourists, it's the perfect time to relax and feel a part of the community. We had a second floor room overlooking the rocky shore and spent time on the balcony, reading and knitting. We visited the Sea Wall - a long barrier of tumbled granite with innumerable life-filled tide pools - and I sat in the sun and knit, while my boyfriend told ripping yarns about his childhood vacations nearby.

This is the view that I saw when I first opened my eyes in the morning:



and soon after, I was on the balcony, watching the sun rise:



After a while, we would wander down to the breakfast room for the 'downeast' continental: hard boiled eggs, fruit salad, sliced fruit, and un-cut apples, pears, bananas, and grapes, bagels and English muffins, oatmeal and cold cereal, apple muffins, coffee cake and Danish, peanut butter, jellies, cream cheese, juices, teas, and coffees....



My favorite breakfast combination was a hard boiled egg, a toasted English muffin with peanut butter, a banana, orange juice and a cup of tea. Those going off on long hikes or bike rides might have been spotted slipping eggs and bananas into their clever jacket pockets...

One day, we took a Nature boat ride around the islands. Here you can see the place we stayed, from the ocean side, and a sail boat that gives evening tours...



We saw four huge Bald eagles, even a nesting pair, and innumerable bay porpoises and harbour seals with their pups. There were about 12 mother-newborn baby pairs. The pups ride on their mother's back - it was so cute! I took a lot of pictures of the seals, but they are so well camouflaged that in all my pictures, they are indistinguishable from the granite outcrops where they were sunning, swimming, and having their babies... Here you can see some bay porpoises in the water:



There is an old lighthouse out on the islands, but it is called the "ugliest lighthouse" on the coast, because it is a square house with a square light tower on top, instead of being the usual tall, round light tower. I didn't think it was ugly - it was beautiful to me. The fog bell is broken in the "on" position, so it is always ringing, but this is good because there is a jagged breakwater nearby that is invisible to ships at high tide:



The grounds of our Inn were beautiful, with lilac bushes and apple trees in full bloom:







Of course, no trip to this area is completely satisfying without a visit to the Lilac Lily Yarn Shop in Southwest Harbour. I wish I had asked if I could take a picture of this lovely shop - it's kind of like magic - it looks like a small white cottage on the outside but inside is room opening on room, every one full on every wall with exquisite yarns and accessories!

There were a couple of enticing displays of Tilli Thomas beaded yarns and I couldn't resist the Australian beaded merino called Flurries in pale green Stormy Haze and the playful blue and seaweed-green Mermaid:



It was hard to say goodbye to this beautiful area of the Maine coast, and of course we talked - as we always do - about finding a little waterside cottage somewhere as our summer haven... Ocean dreams, the very best kind of dreams...

Yesterday's excursions...

I thought that, today, I'd take you with me on my weekend rambles. You'll get to see a little bit of what my town and area looks like, as well as a typical Saturday. It's probably pretty much like your Saturday...

The plan started with the Natural Market which was holding it's first Organic Farmer's Market of the year. The day was warm, but cloudy and overcast, looking like rain, but even so the streets were crowded. I circled the square several times and finally had to park down the hill and walk a couple of blocks. The good news is that this took me past some of the lovely old buildings in that part of town.

The first one that caught my eye was the Art Gallery:



It's been there for a while and Jule worked there before she went to college. One time they had a painting of our house in the window - a local artist had thought it was pretty and, unbeknownst to me, painted it: "Yellow House on X Street"

This week's art is abstract and I found it very soothing:



I stood at the window and admired the paintings for a while, and then continued up the hill, past this little enchanted alcove:



All those bricks! There used to be a brick-making factory in this town in an early time, and there still is a huge granite quarry in the hills outside of town. That's why we all have so much granite - posts, steps, and foundations - in and around our houses, and why so many of the downtown buildings are built of granite and brick.

The market is at the top of a little rise and across the main street...



Being the first one of the season meant that this market day was an incredible bun fight! But there were lots of samples (artisan cheese, macaroni and cheese with mushrooms, lemon and artichoke ravioli, freshly made fried potatoes, Greek yogurt, ice cream...) and free giveaways - I got two new re-usable shopping bags, a green one and a yellow one! I bought a loaf of Oatmeal Bread that had been baked that morning, a container of the Mushroom Macaroni & Cheese, some Greek yogurt (with honey), a package of ice cream sandwiches, and a fresh-baked scone (which has just this minute been eaten while I type)...

With my groceries in my new shopping bags, I made my way back downhill to the car, passed the Mexican Restaurant:



and passed a beautiful old barn that has been renovated for offices:



I particularly liked the big black crow who decided that the very pinnacle of the cupola was his special spot for surveying the entire town.

My next stop was a yarn shop nearby that was having a big sale before closing for their spring vacation. This shop is in a pretty college town at the top of a small mountain:



The houses and the town green are typical of my state where there are many places that go back to the 1600's, 1700's and 1800's. I know that's young by European standards...



The yarn store, Knit New London, is a tiny little store packed full with a wonderful collection of special yarns that I don't see everywhere else... lot's of locally produced yarns (including a baby camel yarn from Cape Cod) and most of the Rowan booklets, which I love.



Of course, the shop was super-crowded because of the sale. One mother-daughter team was pushing in front of everyone else to snatch up the skeins they wanted and spreading the yarn from the shelves all over the floor to choose their colours. The women working the sale were kept very busy putting everything back on the shelves in their wake!

As usual, the shop owner and the others there were very friendly and helpful. At 30% off, I did collect quite a lot for my stash:



1. Malabrigo Silky Wool 2. Namaste Crocheted Flower Tape-measure 3. Rowan Kidsilk Haze 4. Blue Sky Alpacas Silk & Alpaca 5. Classic Elite Premiere Cotton and Tencel

The Premiere cotton is for this little sweater from Greetings from the Knit Cafe, a book I already have in my pattern stash.



But that will have to wait. After yesterday's excursions, I have to spend this sunny day raking the back yard and staking the blackberry bushes...

Tea in the City

Do you recognize this street corner?



This is Newbury Street, Boston. I went on a tea and yarn shop search yesterday. It's been a long time since I've been to Newbury Street - usually my trips to Boston end up in Cambridge.

The morning started, of course, with tea in the sidewalk cafe at Tealux:





I love wandering, window-shopping, and exploring. I saw lots of knitting and crochet in shop windows, and recognized these particular knitted curlicues from patterns in my vintage books:



This syle is a little dowdy, isn't it? Is it 60's style - the tan curvy suit coat over a baggy print dress?

The city itself is more stylish! One thing about Boston is its beauty. The buildings themselves are works of art in brick and stone:



Eventually the new yarn shop was found by my sharp-eyed bf, and I suddenly felt at home. Even though it was one small second-floor room, I spent an hour there, looking at everything, touching everything, envisioning each yarn as a special something, and admiring the beautiful samples made by the shop owner. One was an intricate cashmere lace scarf that caught my bf's attention - he wondered if I would make one for his mother for Christmas? So...some very nice yarn came home with me! and I bought myself a pair of baseball knitting needles.



What is it about Boston that is so magical and compelling? I'm always happy when I'm there...

Today my health is a little fragile, so I'm drinking my tea at home and yukking it up over these very hilarious old recipe cards.

Put the Yarn in the Basket....

....and no one gets hurt!

Today I had to travel to the coast for a meeting, and of course this meant a little time before and after to indulge in yarn and tea. I've been feeling a little sad lately, and melancholy and credit cards is a very dangerous combination! LOL

It was a beautiful, warm day today - full of sun. I wore a sleeveless embroidered sundress and I was still too hot. But early, early in the morning not many shops were open, so I started my day at a cafe called Popovers. I spent a lovely hour at a little table in the window with a crusty (soft inside) popover the size of my head and cup of Irish Breakfast tea from The Portsmouth Tea Company and my iphone tuned to Ravelry. There was a little tempest on a nice friendly group that had been visited by "the phantom disagreer" so I enjoyed giving the group a lot of "love" and "agree" to restore the balance of the universe!

My real reason for wandering these ocean-front brick lanes was to find a certain locally produced hand-painted yarn for my swap partner in Iceland! For years this coastal town has had a little tiny yarn shop tucked into a little tiny side street... but when I got there, the shop was empty! Luckily, there was a sign in the window with a map, that showed they had moved to the corner of High Street and Hanover, right across the street from the parking garage...

The Yarn Basket -



Inside it was spacious, light, and friendly -



And I did way too much damage to the budget! I found the perfect yarn for the swap box, and of course I had to get one for myself too!

The owner was a most wonderful and kind lady who sold me her copy of Yarn Forward magazine in which she has a beautiful sock pattern of her own design!! She is going to be carrying Yarn Forward from now on. And when I told her that I had done some sample knitting for knitonthenet's upcoming book Stitches in Time, she wrote it down and said that she would get some copies in when it's published in September.



I spent such a happy hour here, and was actually sorry to leave to make the trip across the state and go back to work....



But when I got home from work, there was a very intriguing box on my doorstep from a very dear friend in Germany. Nad is a kind and generous person. I have known her for years and we have shared a passion for both tea and knitting. We've both "grown up" in our professions over that decade, too!

BR, (before Ravelry) we were each other's swap partners. Now we swap with so many all over the world. But we still exchange special treats and celebrate special occasions and birthdays and such... She knows that, as a Pisces, I am a goldfish lover and so she sent me.....
This: (!)



KOI!! and RED KOI!! And a Beautiful Mystery Colour!!! Tausendschon!! Isn't it the most beautiful yarn you've ever seen??? I can't wait to discover what I'll make with this. (she also sent me some gorgeous Noro cashmere and two huge skeins that I think are locally spun natural yarns - perfect for a fall sweater)

Do you covet these gorgeous German yarns from far across the sea? I'd bet that Nad could be bribed to trade with you for some Socks That Rock... hee hee (even though her current collection is as big as mine right now!!)

Noro sea urchin

I promised photos of the Hats I made for the local elementary schools, and here are the ones I've completed so far:



Starting clockwise at 3 o'clock (which is, in fact, the order in which I made them) is the top-down pattern of my own design (pattern in sidebar at left) except that I used a very thin DK weight, Reynolds Whiskey, on a size 7 needle. This yarn has a raspy, substantial feel, so even though it's finer in weight, it will be warm. And the colour is exceptional! The little stripe is from some leftover sock yarn, which was sadly orphaned and anonymous...

This next one at 6 o'clock is my personal favorite. I made it up as I went along from a vague memory of a hat in the last Harry Potter movie (there were a lot of wonderful knits in that movie!). I knit it bottom up, 68 CO, size 8 needles, Noro Kureyon. K2 P2 for approx 7.5 inches and then began decreasing. I decreased every 4th and then every 3rd and then every 2nd row in the Purl stitches only until all the purl stitches were gone, then decreased in Knit stitches every other row for 4 rows, then in every row until I had four stitches left on the DPNs. You can see this last section of Knit-only decreases in the vibrant blue part at the top of the hat. I then knit all around the four stitches, over and over, until I had a cord long enought to make a nice knot at top. I threaded the tail through the stitches, pulled it tight and secured it, weaving in the end, then tied my top-knot. I love it, if I do say so myself!

The third one is another that I'm really pleased with! It's the ZeeBee from Schmeebot and what an accomplishment to master this seamless beanie technique!! It's a take-off on Elizabeth Zimmerman's brilliant techniques and is truly fast, fun, and easy!. I used the rest of the one skein of the Reynold's Whiskey and size 7 and 6 straight needles. The top yarny-ball is more of the orphaned sock yarn. It looks quite jaunty! The ZeeBee is knit side to side in garter stitch, with short row shaping to form the crown.

My final hat is a bottom-up free-style hat, Noro Kureyon again. This colourway had a brilliant peacock blue and green strand in it, but when I got to those colours, I skipped them so I'd have a repeat of the more muted browns, greys, blacks, and dark greens. It is K2P2 for 7.5 inches on size 8 circular and DPN needles and then I decreased in pattern (very tricksy for me) so that the ribbing continues to the very top of the hat, where the tail is threaded through the remaining stitches and pulled tight. This made the top of the hat look like cable stitching. All it really was, was decreasing the Purl stitches purlwise, and decreasing the Knit stitches knitwise so that a demarcation between knit and purl was visible all the way up. As you go along, you come to places where you are decreasing a knit and purl stitch together, and I always did this by favoring the first stitch on the decrease, i.e., if I decreased P1K1, I decreased purlwise. If I decreased K1P1, I decreased knitwise. At the end Knit stitches predominated and the very top is an interesting delta of knitwise ribs... It looks like the top of a sea urchin shell:
(sorry for the blur, it was the best I could get in my my be-fuddled post-midnight-knitting brain fog)

and Finally - a photo of my Black Rose yarn from Tausendschon in Germany!

Here it is resting gently amidst my vintage knitting needles, waiting patiently for its transformation in to Rose Socks! You can see that the colours Nadine chose for me are so perfectly dark rose colours, with none of the blue or orange that other skeins in this colourway show! I love it so much. My idea for this yarn includes a pattern of roses. I can't wait to finally get to this design!

Winter in Boston

Today, after McCann's Oatmeal and Wheat Toast (just bragging about my healthy eating habits this morning...) I am finally going to Boston - where I have wanted to go all holiday season! - for shopping and visiting. We're going to drive down to a suburb and take the T into Cambridge's Harvard Square to visit the Bead Shop in Church St, the Yarn Shop on JFK, Burdick's Chocolate Cafe, and Cardullo's delicatessen, and any other shop that captures our curiosity. So many restaurants to choose from, too! Today is cold, but I don't care. The excitement of going to the city will keep me warm! I would like to take my camera to share the trip with you, but it's an old one that work discarded a few years ago and is very big and heavy.

I do have photos, though, for you today. These are the Christmas knitting things that I didn't want to post until their recipients opened them...

First, the scarf knit with Carina's grandmother's needles, which she sent me in the fall: (it's being modeled by my kind friend Chris) The bubbly-spun wool did all the work on this one!




And these are her gloves, which I started before the scarf, but they took for-ev-er! The base yarn is the Opal superwash, but I added in a purple silk thread and a wrist stripe of KidSilk Haze. The back of the hand has a small beaded motif of flowers and leaves.



This next picture is of the very complicated lace design scarf that I designed myself, for Julie. It has Louisa Harding Kimono Angora on each end and LH Impressions with a thread of silk for the lace part in between. The rose colour is really pretty - I noticed she was wearing this colour in a photo she posted, so that's why I chose it. I don't know what possessed me to photograph it against a red pillow, but remember I had the flu before Christmas and no doubt it addled my brain cells....



This last one is the same design in different colours, for my sister J, to remind her of our 20-year-old cat - Shadey - a nice midnight black old man who seemed to glow with copper in the sunlight and disappear into the shadows in the shade. He had three white hairs on his chest - nowhere else. He died last year - a few months before Sausage. He was really her cat, much loved, and slept on her bed until she went to college.





That's it for the knitting right now... I've been much absorbed in enjoying the wonderful gifts you all sent me. J gave me a Nintendo DS and the game "Cooking Mama" which I am already seriously addicted to.

Off to Boston - see you later!

Project Runway for knitters

Last night my LYS had a Knit Fashion show! The first of a series, the intention was to show the creations that had been designed by the Ewe staff, talk about how the design happens, and let us – their knitting devotees – experiment with how they would look on us. Marcie, the Ewe’s owner, Kelly and Dee warmly welcomed each of us as we arrived. There was homemade fruit bread, brownies, chocolate chip cookies (Yum! These knitters can cook!) and hot coffee. Marcie brought out the full coffee pot with a grateful sigh after struggling with an inexplicable coffee explosion in the back room (don’t worry - no yarn was harmed in the making of this coffee!)



The staff of the Elegant Ewe is unique in that all are knit and crochet designers. Whenever you visit, at least one of them is at work on a new idea – and usually all of them at once!

Marcie’s gorgeous designs are intricate, careful and accomplished, though not beyond the beginning knitter who is willing to learn. She is inspired by the fashion world, by traditional patterns that are inaccessible to most of us, and by the knits that she sees at wool shows. It doesn’t have to be a knit design; if she sees a garment that speaks to her, she will spend hours working out how it will translate into a perfect combination of stitches and motifs. She researches gauge and stitch patterns, changing how they are done to get just the effect she wants. She ends up with exquisitely beautiful garments that shape flatteringly to any body type. She works her designs so that once-difficult effects are achieved through clever but easily learned techniques. Marcie’s various Gansey designs are a good example of this.



Kelly said that she has knitting designs running constantly through her mind’s eye and carries a design notebook to quickly jot or sketch her ideas as they occur. Anything will inspire her - a new yarn, a yarn that is sitting, underappreciated, a season, or a fashion she sees on someone else. All of these things spring into full-fledged exuberant creative designs in her knitting imagination. Then she works them out more thoroughly in quiet moments. She is a true artist whose medium is knit, and she’s not afraid to try something experimental, like her skirt that combines knit and crochet.



This photo shows Marcie in her Thanksgiving Shawl in hand dyed alpaca, Dee in the Multiple Yarns Wrap, and Kelly in her bell-sleeved Witchy Woman sweater, also in hand-dyed alpaca.

One of Kelly’s designs, her Grandmother’s Raglan Sweater, has a wonderful story to it. When Kelly was growing up, her grandmother knit a raglan sweater for her every year, each one different – one would be a cardigan, one would have stripes, one would have patterns on it, or cables. When she was in college, she wanted to learn this herself, and her loving Gram recited her own pattern over the phone to Kelly. Like a family recipe, it was very vague and flexible – “a little of this, a pinch of that” – but over the years Kelly worked it out and worked it up into designs that we now treasure. One of her versions has rows of five-pointed stars around the rim, a design, she said, that came from her favorite game as a child – playing “camping out”. Her grandmother wove tales of the night sky as though they were camping under the stars, and so this knit sweater is a fitting tribute to that childhood memory.

Dee is a master at crochet and, although she can and does knit beautifully, crochet is her first love. The Elegant Ewe has begun offering crochet lessons and designs due to Dee’s enthusiasm and her creations can be seen throughout the store. Dee talked about her Fabulous Fan Bag, a vintage-looking design that was inspired by the movie Memoirs of a Geisha.



Here, Dee shows her Fabulous Fan Bag, (which just happens to match her hand-knit blouse!), and Marcie’s Crocheted Capelet.

This evening of fashion a la Project Runway for Knitters was so fun and we learned so much that we can immediately apply to our knitting! We were treated to explanations of how to place designs and motifs to flatter each body type, how to choose yarns to suit the patterns and how to change the look of one pattern just by using a completely different yarn.

For that one night, the yarn for any of these projects was 15% off, and the pattern was free! And, those of us who wore a Ewe-designed creation made from Ewe yarns received a goody bag that contained 3 balls of yarn (one of which was the fabulous Louisa Harding Kimono Angora) and two patterns! I wore the side-to-side shawl in a turquoise that I think looks like the tropical waters (modeled by my friend, Emily, below, while I took the photo) and I called it my Seawave Shawl. It’s made with a variegated ribbon yarn and Kid Seta in mohair and silk. There were many stunning creations, such the fingerless mitts, done in Noro, the cleverly shaped hat, and the Simple Shawl (that is not-so-simple-looking in its lovely hand-painted yarn!).





We all came away with some fabulous projects and yarns to add to our stash (I picked up the Scribble Shawl – a Kelly creation – in marine blue, and the Eyelet Wristers in Kimono Angora variegated browns and blacks) but Heather is the winner! Here she is, beaming with delight, with an armful of gorgeous hand-painted lavender and magenta fibers for Kelly’s “Grandmother’s Raglan” pattern. Minutes later she picked up another stash of the Ewe’s own line of wool in heathered lavender, for a second sweater – and a matching one for her baby son – from the same pattern!