SailingKnitter

Despite the outrageous prices for gasoline, I grabbed my knitting buddy, Sandi, and drove up into the foothills of the Sierra Mountains above Sacramento to visit the yarn studio of Lisa Souza - yarn dyer extraordinaire. We toured her studio, drooled over the rovings and yarns in process, and fondled just about every skein we could find.


As Lisa sat and spun some of her hand-painted rovings on her spinning wheel, I watched and bombarded her with fiber questions. You know I've been starved for fiberly chat and have so much to learn. I wonder how much she'd charge to let me shadow a week of her fiber life?

It was hard to choose just a few skeins to purchase! I bounced between bright colors and cool tones, wild rainbow hand-painted yarns, and softly muted tonals. Finally, I ended up with 1 skein of her new Hardtwist Merino Petite in a soothing peacock color and 3 skeins of Sock! in pumpkin, natural and "South Pacific" hand-dyed. Yes, I have design ideas for all of this yarn and soon...yes, very soon...

Greeting us at Lisa's studio among the pine trees were 4 little sheep - kinda quiet little guys - never said baaa.

Afghan squares #18 and and #19 are done - only one more to go. "Scottish Fleet" is based upon traditional gansey sweater patterning with mostly knits and purls and a couple of simple rope cables. "Medallion Cables" just sorta happened - I cast on with cables in mind and just played with the needles.

Also finished are Pam's plain ole socks. This was a great project for traveling - simple and small. Now, a plain black pair are on the needles for my youngest son.

Four more days and we'll be back in Mexico with a long list of boat projects to complete before taking off for Panama in November. Well, Jonesy will work on the projects, I'm turning around the next morning to fly back up to the states (Memphis, TN) for a family situation.

Knitting on...

Losing something of value is one of the risks of traveling. Usually I'm really good about gathering up my "personal belongings" before "de-planeing". But not this time. Yep - I left behind my knitting on the airplane.

The hours of knitting work weren't what upset me about the loss because I enjoy the knitting process. No, this was not just "my" knitting, but the socks that I'm knitting for a friend (Hi Pam) from the yarn that SHE bought.

And guess what? I phoned American Airlines and actually spoke to the person who found it on the plane! He knew it was special because his grandmother knit him a blanket and he knew that it took many hours of work. So he tagged my little partial sock and yarn ball and waited for my call. I got to thank him in person when I went to the airport to retrieve the sock. THANK YOU American Airlines in Sacramento!

So, I'm thinking. Maybe it would be good idea to always tag your knitting if you travel with it! That way, if it gets lost, perhaps you too would have a good person find it and notify you.

So where are we? Well, we both flew up to Sacramento to visit our oldest son, and to pick up all the boat parts we ordered last month. Niki Wiki is safe in Puerto Vallarta.

It's HOT here! 108 degrees! But we're having so much fun shopping for the things we'll need to cruise south this fall. And I'm enjoying the company of all my friends and knitterly chatter.

And speaking of knitting friends, here's a photo of me on the lap of Senior Frog in Mazatlan. Eat your heart out Beth, the frog is mine.