It's Been Way too Long

So many things have happened it may be hard to catch up, I am happily living in Florida, "The Sunshine State,"  I am trying to continue to be the Pied Piper of knitting here, I have a Nice little group of lovely people who want to learn how to knit and or crochet, or to finish a project that has been put aside, or just pick up where they left off. It is wonderful meeting new people and Iove sharing everything I know about something that I love.

This is the closet I have transformed into my KNITTING CLOSET, I have a room that I am lucky enough to be able to devote to my favorite past time and all of my favorite yarn. It doubles as another guest room when I am lucky enough to have my grandchildren come to visit.

Meanwhile, my tribe of grandchildren has expanded to 7, I now have 6 grandsons and one delightful, beautiful little granddaughter.  I have to travel all over the country to visit everyone and it is oh, so worth it, but I am also continuing my travels abroad to find amazing yarn and knitting experiences.

My last trip was to Portugal where we traveled from Lisbon to Porto on the Douro River.  This included a lot of wine tasting which was also delightful.  The scenery was breathtaking, the weather was perfect.  The countryside was filled with almond trees and olive trees on terraced mountainsides.

My roommate was a wonderful, smart and beautiful lady who owns a yarn dying company in California.  We had a great, fun time; if you are searching for beautiful hand dyed yarn with natural dyes Here is her business card Her company is ADARAH Fiber Art 

Here is an example behind me of the layered or terraced mountains where they cultivate the olive trees and almond trees.  Alas, we did not find a lot of yarn to buy, most of what the Portugese stores were selling was CORK; That is another one of their major exports, so everything was made of cork, pocketbooks, bags, pens, bottles, hats,  you name it you could buy it in cork.

The point of taking a "knitting" trip to Portugal was spending a dreamy time on a river cruise learning from expert knitting designers how to knit sweaters that fit perfectly and how to make your own design.  There were lovely classes out on the deck while we calmly sailed on the Douro River learning new knitting techniques and embellishments.

Here I am trying on one of the sample sweaters that I decided I would like to knit, I just like the style, not sure of the stripes, but I do like the cardigan style and the drape and fit.  I did take the information for the pattern.  It was a fun night, followed by drinking and dancing .

This is a view of the riverbank while we passed the city of Porto, we did dock there and spent some time in the city.  I liked it better than Lisbon, as Lisbon was just another big city, too much like NYC.

Here are two of my traveling companions, knitting away on deck, it was so delightful! The weather was gorgeous.  Luckily we brought our own projects and yarn. Susan and Janice are from Vancouver, Canada and we have been traveling on knitting tours together for 14 years.

We miss our dear friend Norma, she is recuperating in California, I can't wait until she can travel with us again.

NEXT TRIP!!

Knitting Tour to Spain in November, 2026