California dreamin’

We were in California for nearly two weeks last month, and the time to relax/knit was most welcome. I was especially happy to get a lot of work done on this:

I’ve been steadily knitting away on my Big Ginormous Project, finally making it past the 12 repeats of the Yucca chart and nearly finishing the transition chart before getting on to the Agave chart. (This is actually an old picture; the shawl is far too big now to spread out on the needles to take a decent picture.) Adding the beads isn’t nearly as tedious as it was when I first started, simply because I’ve done it so many times now! Right now the shawl is my main project to work on at home (when I’m not spinning!) and my Chocolate Socks have been tagging along in my bag and getting lots of love. So while this blog has been rather quiet, that doesn’t mean the knitting has stopped! I’ve found it interesting how I crave to work on the lace; the increases and decreases are relaxing to me, somehow, and at the same time they keep me thinking as I knit. If I had my way, I would spend my days back at the beach, knittin’ my lace.

From Spring in California 2009

Take me back to Lancashire…

Oh, man. I’ve really been slacking in the fiber department! But usually when not much knitting is getting done, that means that other things in my life are taking up more of my time. Last month I was in England for 10 days with a group from my church, and while I packed some of my projects with the intention of getting some knitting done on the plane or in some spare time, that just did not happen! (You would think I would have found the opportunity sometime during two ten-hour flights…) However, we were up north near the Lake District, and I was able to find fiber and knitting everywhere. First off, our driver, Colin, turned out to be a fantastic knitter:

I wish I could have gotten better pictures, but these are some of the sweaters he brought to show me. As a Lancashire country boy, Colin’s mum had taught him to knit years ago, and just in the last couple years he has picked it up again. Such a great guy, that Colin.

The day before we caught our flight back to Seattle, we headed up to Keswick in the Lake District to do some touristy things. At the open air market in town, I found a fabulous booth with some of the locals’ work:

So neat. And of course there were sheep everywhere:

As well as sheep dogs (my favorite!):

There was a yarn shop in town, but I knew that I didn’t dare go in. The British Pound was killing me already, can you imagine what a dent I could have made in my savings if I had splurged on local yarn and fiber?? Oy.

All of my pictures are here.