SailingKnitter

I've decided to play along with a group (Misery Loves Company) of knitters who are digging out their old, uncompleted knitting projects and get them either finished or unraveled. My MLC project is this Lopi Fair Isle sweater/coat for myself. How old is it? Well, I bought the yarn in October of 1998, BUT, I didn't allow myself to start it until I completed grad school in 2001.

So why has it been shoved into a bag and pushed to the back of the closet? 1)It was too hot in Sacramento to knit with wool in the summertime - especially when the knitting got so large - sitting on my lap. 2) I was still knitting fair isle work with one hand - and using the "lift each new yarn change from under the old yarn" method. Thus the yarns twisted horribly each row and had to be untwisted. Yuck! So much time wasted. 3)I lost the bag in the back of the closet and got too involved with other exciting projects. 4)I actually started the sleeves once, but discovered that I was using the wrong sized needles.

The yarn is beautiful Icelandic wool Lopi light weight, and I still love the colors and design, so I've decided to finish the sweater. So...I got going on a sleeve. What??? Where's the skein of black yarn??? I've lost one color!!!! I tore apart all of my yarn storage (hiding) areas and it is not to be found. So, I've ordered the yarn - can you believe that it is still available??!!! - and now have to wait until next summer to pick it up in the USA when I go to knitting camp and to visit my sons. Oh well... hopefully I will get the enthusiasm back up for this project then too.

On the sock knitting front, I finished another pair of the "warmy socks" for my son, Brett and started the first pair for my nephew, Jon, who lives with Brett and my other son Ryan.

Plus, I taught a fellow cruiser how to knit!! Whooo hooo! Now I have someone to knit with on those balmy afternoons here in Mexico.

Speaking of which...we are STILL here in La Cruz and it's been 8 weeks now in the same place. Can we still be called "Cruisers" if we are anchored in one place for so long, or are we "Loafers"? Jonesy said "I don't care what we're called". Yeah. We do what we want - and we want to wait until our Mexican visas are in our hot little hands before we sail south. Perhaps next week - manana.

We had a visit from Jim (sailing vessel Pas Du Vache) who owns one of our sister boats, another Gulfstar Sailmaster 50 which is pretty rare as there were only 16 of these beauties ever built. So what do two guys do who have the same vessel? Well, inspect the inards of the boat and all the exciting systems hidden under the rear berth of course.

Knitting, loafing, and cruising on....