random threads

Another fo, cruise-related. The knitting cruise offered a total of four classes, of which you could select two. Mom and I picked the Finishing class for our half-day class, which was very good, and as an added bonus, did not result in any UFOs following us home . The other option we didn’t choose, was to make a purse called the WOW! Purse, taught by Jeannie of Tropical Yarns (one of the Miami area LYSs that sponsored the cruise). While I didn’t take the class, the project was intruiging me enough that I bought a kit and knit one up in a matter of days.

The kit included three yarns, a novelty multi-color, Pinot by Trendsetter Yarns, a lilac eyelash, Brazilia by Schachenmayr nomotta and a lilac woven cotton called Elena by Filatur di Crosa (now discontinued). While this purse isn’t my style, it was fun to knit, and doing the long loopies with 3 yarns held together was the main challenge. You wrap the yarns three times around your whole hand and then knit in the front and back of the stitch. At least it was only one row’s worth of that! The body of the purse was knit with two yarns held together (the woven cotton and the polyester eyelash). I added an attached i-cord to the top edge as it seemed a bit flimsy, and did un-attached i-cord for the bit at the center of one side to make the loop for the button. I added an i-cord handle knit in just the Pinot, held doubled if I recall correctly.

Our last port-of-call on the cruise was Cozumel Mexico. Now I’ve been to Cozumel twice before, once for a week 20-some years ago, and then for a day last February on a cruise. Last February, our shore excursion was to the Mayan ruins at Tulum, which made for a very long day of ferries, buses and walking in 100 degree heat. An experience I didn’t care to repeat. On that cruise, one of the quilting teachers, Pat Sloan, mentioned she and her husband had a great time on the cooking class shore excursion, so with that recommendation, that is the excursion Mom and I chose for this trip. We met our other four class-mates on the pier, and then were sent in a 10 minute taxi ride to the Playa Mia resort. After a stop at the open bar, we donned our aprons and our ‘official-chef-in-training’ chef hats. We had two fun chefs to talk us through the preparation of our three-course meal, Luis and Moises. For an appetizer, we made a Mexican sope, which was somewhat like a tostada but instead of a thin tortilla, it was a grilled pancake made of tortilla dough. Our main course was pan-fried grouper with a fresh mango sauce, and a grilled banana pepper stuffed with zuchini blossoms and corn. For dessert, we built a rice pudding tower with rice pudding and cookies. We worked at a mobile workstation with two gas burners and a griddle for four of us. All the hard work was done for us, chopping onions, pureeing the mango, mixing up the cookie dough, even forming the cookie dough into the correct size balls. We just had to stir and mix, season to taste, and flatten the cookie dough in the tortilla press to make our cookies. We also got to decorate our plates with raspberry sauce and cream in squirt bottles, so our finished creations looked like proper spa cuisine. Here we are with some of our creations: After we finished cooking, we were escorted upstairs to the dining room to enjoy our own creations with Mexican wines. And it was delicious! We then had about two hours to enjoy the beach at Playa Mia, do a bit of souvenir shopping before it was time to take a taxi back to the ship. All in all, a very enjoyable day.

The first port on our cruise (after leaving Fort Lauderdale) was Key West. The ship arrived around 7am, so you can see the sun has just risen in the photo shot from our balcony on Deck 7 down to the pier area. At 8:45 we were down on the pier to meet up with our shore excursion in a light mist. We signed up for a Trolley tour of the city, and a guided tour of Truman’s Little White House. Our trolley guide, David, was pretty knowledgeable as he drove us around town for about an hour. Some of the sights:

I forget the exact story why, but there are a lot of free-roaming chickens (and roosters) that roam Key West. When we first pulled into port, we heard the roosters crowing.

We drove by the marker for the Southernmost point in the US. 90 miles to Cuba, but we’d pass by closer than that on the ship later in the trip.

After the trolley trip, we visited the Truman ‘Little White House’ which was the Navy base commandant’s home. Truman visited a total of 11 times during his life, while he was President and then after he left office. The house with large Florida-style wrap-around porches was furnished mostly with the same furniture used during Truman’s time. It was a very interesting tour–I had studied Truman while in high school as an independent study project, but came away from the visit with a new appreciation for the man.

While on the trolley, we passed by a shopping center and eagle-eye mom spotted the words YARN. So, after the ‘Little White House’ tour, we managed to find the Knit Wits Yarn shop, and I made a few purchases. This was a nice yarn shop with wooden floors (love that in a shop). But I did find it a bit disconcerting that the yarns were arranged by color, not weight or manufacturer. Pretty, but it made it hard to find the sock yarn. However, I did find a skein of Colinette Jitterbug in “Popsicle.” Also picked up a kit for a cute baby pumpkin hat from Bully Woolies and a set of Addi’s I needed for my class.

Yes, I’ve been gone on vacation for a little while…I returned last week from a wonderful Caribbean cruise that was a KNITTING cruise, hosted by the ladies (Susan and Jeannie) of Tropical Yarns and Elegant Stitches (LYS’s in the Miami area). We sailed out of Fort Lauderdale on November 1st, and stopped at two ports, Key West and Cozumel. Onboard ship (the Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas), we had a day and a half of knitting classes while at sea. Mom and I took the classes in Finishing Techniques with Susan, which was very good as I think I finally got the mattress stitch down. And hey, no UFO to finish up after class!

The second, all-day class we took was the Ruffled Purse, taught by Jeannie. The ladies had kits already made up for the purses that we could buy, and I picked out a dark gray and silver combination. It had Mission Falls 1824 Cotton in the color Graphite as the base yarn and then a selection of novelty yarns and ribbons in gray and silver. They also had handles available to purchase in the mini-shop they brought in suitcases with them! All of which I picked out to coordinate with my newly finished Silver Froth Shawl–I still need to get a post-fringe-completed photo take before I can declare that an official F.O., but I have worn it twice.

I enjoyed knitting the ruffled purse, although repeatedly casting on 108 stitches for each half of the ruffle was a pain. I got through it tho’. The novelty yarn was already cut into sections about 10 yards long, knotted to each other in random order, and wound into a nice, neat cake. Each ruffle was attached to one side of the purse in a technique like the 3 needle bind-off, only without binding off. I had such fun knitting the purse, I finished it in less than a week! Here’s the finished photos. Notice the variations in the ruffles from one side to the other.

More on the rest of the cruise in the next few days, including yarn shopping in Key West, and a day in Cozumel that did not involve laying on the beach in the sun.