SailingKnitter

We're both back home now on Niki Wiki in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. Ahhh...no phones, no clocks, just peace and quiet. While I took a 2-week side trip to Memphis, Tennessee and just got back a few days ago, Jonesy spent that time on the boat chipping away on the chores list.

Check out the new Solar Panels he mounted on the newly extended rear arch! We had extension built for us back in June, so when Jonesy returned to the boat a couple of weeks ago, he got right to work installing & wiring the new panels. When the sun is out we are now getting 640 watts from these babies! This significantly reduces our dependency on our diesel generator.

He installed a rebuilt raw water pump on the main Perkins diesel engine and has already started installing our new Spectra water-maker! Yep, we'll be making fresh water from sea water thru reverse osmosis. The installation will take him about a week as there sure is a lot of equipment and tubing to hide throught the boat.

While we were in California in July, I did a little yarn dyeing. First up some DK superwash wook from Knit Picks dyed various blues & green. Funny thing is, I started out with one cup of a deep forest green - and that is all I used for this skein. As I smooshed the dye along the skein, apparently the yellow portion of the dye mix readily absorbed into the yarn leaving only the blue unabsorbed. I added some water to the remaining dye fluid and got the lighter blue color. Serendipity - I like it!

The big dyeing project was these two "Sock Blanks" from Knit Picks. These are superwash sock wool/nylon and come already knit up in stockinette. There are 2 strands knit together and each blank makes a pair of socks.

My goal: stripes in different colors. Why? Because I want to knit a two-color pattern holding one strand from each blank! Faux Fair Isle! We'll see how this experiment works out.

Here's a simple little newborn cap that I knit up for a friend of a friend here in Mexico.

And speaking of friends, while I was taking the photos of the yarn & knitting today, a little friend watched me. Yep, a green iguana. He (she?) is about a foot long. I managed to catch a photo just as it scurried away into that hole under the concrete.

Back to work & knitting...