Lace – Page 4 – ArgoKnot

So Much Water over the Bridge!

April 25, 2014 | 1 Comment

Weeks have passed since my last post….a combination of rough weather and lots of sailing has prevented me from keeping up here. I cannot use my computer when I am seasick, and I’ve been seasick a lot!

But that is not to say that I haven’t had some wonderful times during the past couple of weeks. We have had some great times on shore!

Today we are back in Staniel Cay in order to meet our son Rob and his girlfriend Kandice when they fly here tomorrow afternoon. The weather is finally settled and promises to be springlike for the next few days! …Although at this very moment the dark skies to the southwest are rapidly approaching, and I think we will get quite a violent squall any minute now! During squalls like these we have sometimes seen water spouts….I hope we won’t experience one!

We have lots of plans for things to do with Rob and Kandice, starting with seeing the pigs on Big Major’s Spot and snorkeling in the local grotto, named after the old James Bond movie “Thunderball” where the filming took place. We have not seen Rob and Kandice since early January, so we are really excited for their arrival!

Yesterday we sailed about 50 miles from Rock Sound, Eleuthera, to Pipe Cay in the Exumas. (Perhaps I should mention that just a week earlier I also endured a 70 mile ocean run from Thompson Bay, Long Island, to Rock Sound Eleuthera….go me!) While we were getting under way, Bob heard on the Cruiseheimers net (on sideband radio) that someone caught a big tuna, so he could not resist the temptation to try catching something himself. He put out a line and within an hour or so he had a mahi mahi giving him a good fight. As he got it closer to the boat we could see it was a whopper!

That fish yielded us over 8 lbs of filets! We had our friends Maureen and Bill (from Kalunamoo) over for dinner last night, and we have at least four more meals waiting in the freezer. We will definitely have it for dinner one night while Rob and Kandice are here.

And what a wonderful time we had on Eleuthera! This was our first visit there. Easter weekend was lovely in Rock Sound. We decided to visit the Methodist Church for Easter service, while Bill and Maureen went to the Catholic church….there were numerous other choices as well. As luck would have it, just before the service started Nancy and George from Trumpeter (Nancy taught me to make Bahamian coiled baskets last winter) came and sat next to us. They have attended this church every Easter for several years. The service was very festive, with lots of music, a liturgical dancer and plenty of enthusiasm in the congregation. We estimated that there were over 100 people in the congregation, about 40% white and 60% black. This Methodist Church is one of the oldest churches on the island, and has already celebrated its bicentennial. The sanctuary is deceptively modern, with an elaborate sound system and a power point projector. It was a hoot!

On Easter afternoon we met Bill and Maureen at the local blue hole, right in the center of the town park in Rock Sound, for our Easter dinner picnic. Maureen had baked some of their own frozen mahi mahi for us, along with freshly baked beer bread! This blue hole is quite impressive since it is only a few feet shallower than Dean’s Blue Hole on Long Island, which is the deepest blue hole in the world. And Rock Sound’s blue hole sits in the middle of a lovely park where we could have our picnic right at the edge of the water, in the shade of a big tree. It was a perfect afternoon!

We also rented a car for two days and toured the rest of Eleuthera with Maureen and Bill. We visited the Glass Window on a mild day and were very impressed with the force of the ocean even in calm conditions. Our photo does not show how much force the calm waters have when they hit the tiny isthmus here. It was dramatic! I can only imagine what that surging bit of the Atlantic must have looked like the day it moved the bridge about 12 feet. Yikes!

We drove north to a spot called Preacher’s Cave, a place where some English settlers found refuge after their ship was wrecked on the Devil’s Backbone (back in the late 1600s) at the northeastern side of Eleuthera near what is now Harbour Island. The cave is impressively big, so it’s easy to understand that it provided a wonderful refuge for those weary and distraught settlers.

Along the way on our 90-mile drive north we also stopped at the Queen’s Baths, another spot where the mighty Atlantic surges against the coast into a cave creating lots of foam and bubbles. Can you see Maureen and me picking our way across the far side of the Queen’s Baths?

Walking along these craggy shores is a lot harder than it looks in this photo. Here’s a close up to give an idea of how rough going it is! The rocks are some kind of very sharp limestone….lots of small (and sometimes large!) craters have formed in these rocks so getting a flat purchase for walking is virtually impossible!

The shopping and restaurant options on Eleuthera were quite a bit more civilized than we’ve experienced in the Exumas! We had a lovely lunch two days in a row. The first day we visited Rainbow Inn and sat on their upper deck overlooking Exuma Sound, and the second day we stopped at Tippi’s and sat in an open air dining room that overlooked the pink sand beach and the Atlantic.

And here is a shot of the pink sand beach at Tippi’s.

Eleuthera was so much more civilized than the Exumas that they even have a ‘camauflaged” cell tower. All through the islands we recognize the distinctive red and white towers of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (Batelco) and anchor nearby these towers whenever we can so that we can have cellular internet, such as now! But Eleuthera has a cell tower camauflaged as palm tree!

So now I am in the final stages of my winter away. I’m not certain now much more work I’ll get done on my various projects. Perhaps my tapestry will not be finished when I leave….sigh… but I do have two pairs of socks finished (one of them being those fun ‘skewed’ socks!), a fair isle sweater knitted up to the armholes waiting for inspiration on how to proceed for the upper body shaping, several small table embroideries from decades back now finished!….and the last project: Boo Knits “Sweet Dreams” shawl that I just started yesterday. Shawl knitting is quite addictive… I often find that I knit the whole thing in one go. I’m into the final lace area already, so I guess I would say this project is hard to put down. I’m using Verdant Gryphon “Mithral” in the colorway “Bathsheba,” which has lovely woodland shades of bronze/evergreen/burgundy that reminds me of fairies! Queen Mab would love this shawl!

We’ll spend the next 10 days with our kids traveling north through the Exumas. We hope to take the kids to Compass Cay to swim with the sharks and see the beautiful beach there, then to Warderick Wells for more swimming and snorkeling in the Exuma Land and Sea Park. Bob has stumbled into a wonderful connection with the manager of Over Yonder Cay, where we may get a private tour ….if it works out I will definitely give details!

By the end of the first weekend in May we must be back in Nassau for the kids and I to meet our flight back to the US. I will stop in Baltimore with Rob and Kandice for a visit at their house and some time with my favorite dog, Bosun! Bob’s crew will arrive the day I fly out with the kids, so he will begin his journey back to the US the slow way.

I am so excited to be headed home for a beautiful spring on the Connecticut River! I hope some of my bulbs will still be blooming, and I hope I have some Danish flag poppies in bloom from the seeds I planted last fall! On my first day home (if I can get one of the cars started!) I will be heading out to my local weaving guild meeting! Lots to look forward to!

Migration

September 21, 2012 | Leave a Comment

The lovely sights in Chesapeake City….

Do you think they bought that red car to match their front door?

We are starting to see lots of migrating birds, and it seems to me that this year we are migrating with them. Each day that we haul anchor in the morning we are accompanied by the honking song of Canada geese in their V-formations, and as we travel south we find monarch butterflies alighting on Pandora for short breaks before fluttering away.

The bird life here is extensive! In the Sassafras River we were exploring the coast line, and we startled two blue herons off their nest! What a beautiful sight to see them take flight right in front of us! We had not noticed the nest because it was well hidden in a ‘bog’ of lotus! We have never seen lotus growing in such a temperate climate before. It looks like it has become rather invasive in the Sassafras River, and we wondered if the lotus will soon take over… I guess only time will tell.

We have been sailing along with three other boats since Cape May….not on purpose….but each day that we travel we see them sailing too. For several nights we’ve ended up in the same harbor, so naturally we’ve gotten together to re-hash the day and talk about where we’re heading. I know this is quite a common occurrence for boats heading south. Perhaps we are becoming a different kind of migrating flock! We saw Banyan, a 40 ft Juneau, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Cape May with David and Alex (short for Alexandra) onboard. In Chesapeake City we first saw Peregrine, a 42 ft. Catalina, with Dave and Libby on board with their dog Brody. And also in Chesapeake City we stumbled on Rick and Julie Palm, who live aboard Altair, a larger version of Pandora, and whom we met briefly a few summer ago in Maine. We have formed our own very loose flock and have decided to explore the Chester River together over the next few days. We will see both Banyan and Peregrine at the SSCA seminars that will take place in Camp Letts at the end of next week.

So I am settling into life aboard…. coffee and knitting in the mornings. I have finished the shawl and should have posted photos days ago. I have now started a little baby sweater for the brand new granddaughter who arrived last week to join the family of my oldest childhood friend. And earlier this week I made ‘poolish’ which will become my ongoing sourdough starter for bread while the weather remains cool enough to bake. I made the first loaf yesterday, and it was a success! I will make another loaf today since there is more poolish ready to use now.

2012-09-18 09.48.43 — Swatch for "Shadow Baby" sweater

I am feeling the pangs of homesickness, but it is balanced by the joys of living is this soft southern landscape. We’ve seen a number of bald eagles since arriving in the Chesapeake, and yesterday we saw one shag a fish right out of the water and rise into the blue sky with his/her catch! It was dramatic!

Day 8, September 18: Lay Day in Chesapeake City (#29)

Day 9, Sept. 19: Chesapeake City to the Sassafras River (#29 – 31)

Day 10, Sept. 20: Sassafras River to Rock Hall (#31 -34)

Day 11, Sept. 21…..we’re not entirely sure yet! We will walk into Rock Hall today for some provisions, and then we’ll think about sailing up the Chester River to Chestertown….

Destination: Vulcan’s Rest

September 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Have I mentioned that the main reason I agreed to doing the New Jersey coast was so that I could stop at the weaving store called Vulcan’s Rest in Chesapeake City? I kid you not that I was willing to endure almost any sailing conditions to get there, and luckily I made it there with almost no trauma!

Day 6, Sept. 16: Atlantic City to Cape May (#25)

Finally, a zephyr! We motored most of the day down the coast of NJ, and I actually got to knit a fair part of the day! This is a very good thing because no one, including me, likes to be around me after I’ve been emptied handed for a couple of days. I have to admit that my knitting was something on the order of knit one row, look at the horizon and breathe deeply for a few minutes…..knit another row. Still, it was better than not knitting. I do realize that this paints me as somewhat of a fanatic, or an obsessive person. Well, I’m officially calling the pot black.

We got into Cape May in the mid afternoon. I’d been told that the anchorage is no where near the town, and boy was that right! It was a long dinghy ride to shore, but both Bob and I were bent on having a walk to stretch our legs. My dear friend June is always visiting her sister in Cape May, so I rather wondered where she lives! I had also heard she has a boathouse right on the water for a summer cottage. When we got ashore I found myself looking across at a lovely row of about eight vintage boathouses. I had a feeling one of them had to be Stina’s. I did try calling Stina since June had given me her number. No luck….

Then Bob and I took a walk through a residential area that put us on the road right behind these boathouses. The one I’d imagined Stina living in had a bright red Volkswagen bug parked behind it, and I imagined Stina driving this very car. It seemed to fit with my image of her, even though I don’t know her at all.

We stopped and had a drink on a fake schooner-turned-cocktail bar in the harbor and then got back in our dinghy to head out to Pandora. But as we left we just took one little turn by the boathouses. There were two couples sitting on the deck of the one I had dubbed as Stina’s, and wouldn’t you know one of the women looked about the right age (80s). So I decided to give a yell, “Are you Stina?” And she was! We were invited into this lovely boathouse that has been beautifully renovated to look very Swedish. It was really wonderful! My huge regret is that I never thought to get a photo of all of us together! Stina is June’s fireball older sister and is almost 89 years old. She has far more energy than even my 28 year old son, and she makes my energetic husband seem positively unconscious…. yes, I know what that means I look like in comparison to her!

Oh! Wouldn’t you know that Stina’s boathouse is the very next house to the right that didn’t get included in this shot! Could I have had worse luck?? And hers is even quainter than these….sigh…

To totally top things off, Stina asked us what we did when we came ashore, and when we mentioned getting a drink at ‘The Schooner’ she asked us if her granddaughter might possibly have been our waitress. Of course we had no way of knowing, but Bob thought to check the receipt which showed our waitress was the granddaughter. Pretty serendipitous! We were meant to meet!

Day 7, Sept 17: Cape May to Chesapeake City (#26 – 33)

In order to get the tides just right we got up at 4.45 this morning. Ugh! We left Cape May and went rather far out due to the shoaling around the tip of New Jersey, and then found our way into the shipping channel for the Delaware River. That was when we got the big payoff of a stunning sunrise which made me thankful for getting up today! It was 50 miles up the river to the C&D Canal (Chesapeake and Delware). Today was truly zephyr breezes, and I finished the Flower Basket shawl!

I really don’t like how lace looks when it comes off the needles, before being blocked. It’s so spongey and amorphous. I will tackle blocking it on 0ur bed tomorrow!

The C&D Canal was a lovely ride, with lush greenery all the way to the water’s edge. It had the feel of another century, when farms were all along both banks. Some of the old farmhouses are still sitting along the banks, and some new suburban looking developments have also cropped up. Everything was very verdant and peaceful. Beautiful! Very southern feeling. I can only imagine how much more ‘southern’ its going to get in a few more weeks!

I got my stop at Vulcan’s Rest! This was my much anticipated destination on this first part of our journey. I bought yarn….no kidding!

Lovely Chesapeake City….

A ship going down the canal right in the backyard! Pretty amazing!

Bittersweet Season

November 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment

It is the bittersweet change of season and here is the last rose from my garden, a David Austen “Heritage” (I don’t count the ever blooming shrub roses for some reason….).

I love the change of seasons. The days are warm, and the sun on my skin feels almost like summer, ‘though by late afternoon there is a chill in the air that clearly means summer is gone…long gone. Yesterday and today I stood for a while in a blizzard of yellow leaves swirling all around me.

Fall is festival time, and last weekend was “Lace Day” for the Metro Chapter of the Intenational Old Lacers. There were demonstrations, vendors and classes!

This group (of mostly, but not entirely, women) proves that lace making is not a dying art. Their knowledge is legendary: they can tell the difference between Torchon, Milanese, Honiton from 20 yards (not to mention about a dozen other types of laces), and they have strong preferences about bobbins: midlands, bayeaux, honiton…again, more names than I can keep track of… The vendors had some beautifully painted bobbins and other tools that were as pretty as the lace itself.

This is just a small portion of what was on display during the event, all made by members of this group.

Look at that fan.

These lace mavens do demonstrations all year long, at historic sites and local libraries. Somehow they manage to talk to people as they work. Impressive!

Making a lace border for a handkerchief has been my goal since my first lesson. Now I’m there!

Knitting and Fabric Shops in Coastal Maine

August 10, 2011 | 1 Comment

Several of our usual ports have surprised me with wonderful knitting and fabric shops! Our ‘guest room’ is quickly filling up with my treasures!

Bath: Halcyon (the photo on their homepage is that Ecobaby sailor pattern! Ha!) I have to admit that I’ve never been to Halcyon by

HALCYON-YARN-STORE-PICTURE — Halcyon Yarn

boat, but I have been going by car for 15 years. You could get there by boat if you wanted to go that far up the Kennebec River and brave its challenging currents. In all the years I’ve driven over that bridge I’ve never actually seen a sailboat moored in the river near Bath. That’s not to say no sailboats ever go, just that I haven’t seen them on my yearly visit. And what can I say about Halcyon, other than it is a weaver’s and knitter’s Mecca, not to mention spinners, rug hookers, crocheters, braiders, felters, etc…etc… If you do anything related to fiber, this is a great resource! Halcyon is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. I had a wonderful shopping spree there!

Boothbay Harbor: You need a car to get to Onboard Fabrics, but it is really worth it! It’s a barn on Rte 127 (and their address is Edgecomb but my point of view is the harbor where a sailing seamstress might disembark), not far off Rte. 1 on the way to

onboard_fabrics_barn — On Board Fabrics, near Boothbay Harbor

Boothbay Harbor. They have lots of nautical fabrics, inweights from upholstery to cotton lawn. This year I bought fabrics to make aprons for gifts. No sewing machine on board Pandora, so these projects will have to wait ’til I get home (meanwhile, my husband does have his sailrite sewing machine on board…but it will only sew heavy canvas and sail materials!).

Rockland: Quilt Divas. They have fabric and yarn! And the selections for both are great! It is walking distance from the harbor

for us sailors! I bought the Debbie Bliss “Ecobaby” book here as well as the yarn for the sailor sweater that is currently challenging me to re-design the collar! I also bought more fabric for aprons here. Now I’m going to make a lot of aprons for gifts!

Camden: The Cashmere Goat is new this year, in a good location right in the center of town (what used to be a shoe store). The shop

cashmere goat camden me — 'The Cashmere Goat in Camden

is not yet full, but they do have some wonderful yarns. I bought Manos del Uruguay’s “Serena” (kettle dyed, 60% baby alpaca, 40% pima cotton) in a handpainted colorway (#9796) of watery blues and greens. I’m going to knit a lace shawl from one of the free patterns at Interweave Knits

Belfast: Sock Heaven. This yarn store has been in business for about 10 years now, but I haven’t been to Belfast in about 15 years,

Knitting Sock Heaven Belfast ME — Heavenly Socks in Belfast

so it is new to me! There is an entire wall of yarns produced in Maine, including Hope Spinnery and Done Roving. My big score here was Louet “KidLin”(49% linen, 35% kid mohair, 16% nylon) which I’ve been hoping to find during all my yarn store hunting. It was hard to choose a color for Louet’s “Cia” Pattern, but I finally settled on “Mexican Orange,” a fun blend of gold and warm pink.

There is also a beautiful fabric store on High St. in Belfast. I did not note the name yesterday, but I hope to go back today to spend more time there. I will take a photo and get the name!

Other places. I’ve been to the guild shop in the center of Blue Hill, as well as the yarn shop slightly out of town that has since gone out of busines (sigh…), and I’ve been to Shirley’s Yarns in Hancock (where I bought Dale microfiber years ago for a tank top I never finished because it was so unflattering on me!). Now I understand there are two shops in Blue Hill that I may not know: Blue Hill Yarn shop on Ellsworth Rd. and String Theory on Beach Hill Rd. I don’t know if we’ll get to Blue Hill this year, but now I hope so! And a google search shows two promising shops on Mt. Desert, one in Southwest Harbor (Lilac Lily Yarn Shop) and one in Bar Harbor (Bee’s, Inc.), so I hope to visit both of these since we are on our way there for the weekend.

I am putting aside the Debbie Bliss sailor sweater for the moment. This is quite a disappointment to me, but I do want to give some thought to that collar. The knitters on Ravelry did not have any solutions that appealed to me, so I will take a look in my library of knitting design books when I return home in September.

Here is my next knitting project, Louet’s “Cia.”

Louet KidLin Mexican Orange — Louet's KidLin Mexican Orange

First I will finish my own design that uses Tess Designer Yarns’ micofiber ribbon. I’ll be writing up that pattern to share here and on Ravelry. It’s a very simple pattern, and I’m almost finished!