Mainly Maine

Myria was born in Japan and raised in California.  Except for a few years around college time, I have always lived in New England.  But I never saw Southern Maine until Myria brought me up there for the first time about 11 years ago.

The coast area is spectacular and, for the most part, very rocky.  There are beaches and they are beautiful.  But mostly the coastline is rugged and you wonder how the old ships managed it at all.  There are a lot of famous Maine lighthouses and that rocky coast is why there are so many of them.





This is Nubble Light at Sohiers Park in York.  We stop there often to enjoy the view and feed the gulls.  One fall night we pulled in after dark, got an afghan out of the back of the car and went down to sit on one of the stone benches.  There, the ambient light was very low and we were able to observe the galaxy of stars overhead.  It was breath-taking because it isn’t something we get to see very often.  We live in the city where there is a relatively high level of light - even after dark.  This panoply was like what I remember seeing out in my parent’s back yard when I was very young, before the area had been built up much.  It was wonderful to see that they were all still there - dense and glittering against the black night sky.  It’s not the usual association one makes with lighthouses, but it’s a treasured association for me.





This place is called The Sea Castles and it’s where we stay when we do more than a day trip.  It’s a nice, relaxed place with a nice view of the ocean across the street.  It’s rates are reasonable given the resort area and it’s one of the few hotels that stays open year ‘round.  We especially enjoy visiting the Ogunquit area in January or February.  The beauty of the ocean and the shore is undiminished, the hotel rates are low and there are no crowds.





Walking the beaches can provide some amazing surprises.  One December 26th, we wandered up and down the town beach for the afternoon.  A flock of pipers stayed about 100 feet ahead of us, darting in and out of the surf, their long little legs moving so quickly they were just a blur.  We watched seagulls pick up the big clams that proliferate just off shore, and drop them onto the hard packed sand to crack them open.  We collected shells of all types and sizes and threw a group of stranded starfish back into the water so they wouldn’t dry out.





Another time I found a small, delicate and quite anonymous skull (which currently lives on my desk).  I have no idea to whom it belonged, but imagine it was probably a bird of some sort.  The bone is very fine and light.  Sometimes, if I hold it in profile and look at it just right I can imagine it might have belonged to a very small dragon :)

There is something about the ocean.  When I was growing up, my family always went on summer vacation to a large New Hampshire lake.  It was lovely and I remember it fondly.  But neither of my parents seemed much interested in the ocean so it was quite a discovery to me.

No matter what the time of year, whenever we go up to Maine, I wade out into the water for at least a few minutes.  And no matter what’s happening in my life, whether I’m feeling whimsical or blackly depressed, I come out calmed and balanced.  Almost any ocean would do, I suppose - the shores of Iceland and Greenland are amazing while I found the Caribbean, oddly, less so.  But it is on the southern Maine coastline that I find the best combination of beauty and convenience.

So that’s where I go :)

I was playing around with stitch patterns again (big shock, eh?) and found a type of seed stitch that doesn’t require purling.  It is, instead, based on slipped stitches and looks pretty neat.

It’s from the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year calendar and is called “Moss Slip Stitch”.  It’s done over an odd number of stitches.

1 (right side) K1, *sl1, K1; repeat from * to end.
2 K1, *sl1 wyif, K1; repeat from * to end.
3 K2, *sl1, K1; repeat from * to last stitch, K1.
4 K2, *sl1 wyif, K1; repeat from * to last stitch, K1.

Repeat these four rows for the pattern.

The swatch shows both the standard seed stitch at the top and the slip stitch version on the bottom.

Because of the slipped stitches, the fabric is compressed both horizontally and vertically and is quite dense.  The texture is very clearly defined in this version which uses wraps to simulate the purls of the standard version.

Regular seed stitch is also very attractive and doesn’t work up to the same kind of bulk.  It makes a thinner fabric and is generally considered to work up at the same gauge as stockinette.

In the swatch, I was fascinated to note that after the slip stitch version was completed, the fabric spread out during the stockinette portion which was worked only to give a visual separation between the two texture stitches.  But, when I started to work the regular seed stitch part, the fabric spread out even further.  What I don’t know is how much of that might be related to slip stitch compression and how much is just what’s inherent in the stitch patterns themselves.

Anybody got any ideas?

Well, here we are, back at Monday again.  You notice the weeks keep doing that?

I didn’t do much of anything over the long weekend, just kinda pulled in and rested.  I’ve been tired and a little down, so it seemed like a good idea.  The last couple of weeks have been so hectic that beyond a little necessary food shopping, I did very little else.  Well, I read but that’s like saying I breathed and doesn’t denote anything extraordinary or even unusual :)

I haven’t had any kniting motivation whatsoever.  I would be alarmed, but I know that as soon as I’ve had a chance to relax and unwind a bit, it’ll come back.  I did a couple more repeats on the short-row scarf and worked some more on the Big Green Thing (TM) but that’s about it.  It looks like both pieces wil get finished eventually and that’s a good thing because I start way more things than I ever finish!

This is what’s got me running around in a semi-frenzy at the moment:

Pretty, isn’t she?  My father and I are leaving on January 4th (next Sunday) on this ship to sail through the Panama Canal.  It’s a 12 day cruise (not a “three-hour-tour") and I am looking forward to it.  But until we actually leave Ft Lauderdale, things will be a bit tense.





Dad gets very edgy as departure time nears - especially at this time of year when a snowstorm could close down the airport.  The ship won’t wait for you if you’re late - it can’t.  So dad will be working himself up into a nice quiet frenzy over the course of this week.  Needless to say, he’s been packing for the last month. 

I’m trying to get things in order myself.  The ship has formal, semi-formal and casual nights.  While the dress code isn’t regulated with an iron fist, it is expected that you will clothe yourself appropriately.  For me this presents some interesting challenges as I am not a formal or even a semi-formal type person.  My wardrobe is...erm...relaxed.  I have a long, black velvet skirt that works for formal (paired with a silk tunic) but we’re going to be in the Caribbean and velvet is going to be too warm.  Thank goodness Myria tends to be a girl-girl and how fortunate that where skirts are concerned, we are a similar size.  She has a light, floatly black skirt - the perfect thing for warmer weather - that she will let me borrow.

I know, I know - these are not life-changing decisions we’re making here.  I wish the cruise ships did these things differently, but their clientele (at least on the high-end lines my father prefers to travel) is older, gernerally quite wealthy and quite spoiled.  They seem to enjoy the opportunity to dress up.  Me, I have a lovely little all-purpose denim jumper that works wonderfully for me most of the time and believe me, that and a few jerseys and blouses would be the only clothes I’d bother with if the choice were mine.

And if I only had the disapproving looks from the maitre d’ to worry about, I might do just that.  But my father, well, dad is totally weird about these things.  Formal dinner dress may not be graven in stone as far as the cruise line is concerened, but for my father, it is.  So I will put together the most comfortable evening clothes I can manage.

I only pack two bags: one to check and one to carry on.  I try very hard to keep the clothing to a minimum because there are other things I want to have along - my knitting, for example.  I have a room with a veranda this time and expect to spend a gret deal of time there enjoying the ocean and my knitting :)

But before that happens, I have to get laundry done, actually decide what to take and what to leave, get my hair cut (trying to get rid of the rest of the “blonde” experiment), get the shopping taken care of (I will be gone for 13 days and Myria doesn’t drive) and so forth.  This week is going to be busybusybusy…

...not quite the same as the old blog :)

I got tired of Blogger’s shenanigans.  I had wanted to go with Movable Type when I first started this beast, but I didn’t have a host site then.  Now I do!  Things are pretty much set up though there’ll probably be some settling as things progress (this blog is based on weight, not on volume - some settling may occur during upload :)

The old archives are available under “Archives” on the sidebar. 

Christmas was calm and quiet - in fact I spent it working on the blog.  You know, it actually turned out to fun.  I love figuring things out - especially when I can figure them out!  And, of course, playing with colors and layout is just the icing on the cake.

Anyway, I hope you like the new place.  Despite the cosmetic changes, it’s still the same old Yarnpath with the same old me behind it.  I appreciate your patience while I work things out.

Welcome and enjoy!