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...