Caribbean Knitting

jody

sunrise.jpg
sunrise in the North Atlantic

I’m back from the Caribbean. We took a cruise to the Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. It was my favorite vacation ever. I am well-rested, well-fed and even a little bit tan.
And of course I fit in some knitting.
A few cruise highlights:

  • Drinking in Nassau at 10:30 am in an outdoor bar with the Atlantic washing under the deck.
  • Formal night — it’s so much fun to get dressed up!
  • Surviving a crazy open air taxi tour in St. Thomas.
  • Drinking Ti Punch from Boo Boo Jam on Orient Beach.
  • Boning up on my geography. I now know where Mauritius can be found, and that Burma is also known as Myanmar.
  • Knitting — on the balcony, on the deck while the sun rises, on a lounge chair while the sun sets.

I didn’t expect to get much knitting done — I thought it would be too humid. But the weather was perfect, and other than a 2 hour rain storm that opened up during our walk back to the ship, the sun was shining the entire 7 days we were away.
I finished the back of Norah Gaughan’s Shell Tank before realizing I left the cable pattern at home. No pics — it’s just a big black blob right now.
I also started Aranmor by Alice Starmore. I’m using Mission Falls Wool in a natural color. I’ve never used MF wool and am impressed with how soft it feels. An aran weight sweater grows quickly.

aranmorSleeve.jpg

This will be a long-term project and I’ve given myself until October 2007 to finish it — before Rhinebeck would be great.
While I was away a lot of the warm weather patterns were released — IK Spring 2007, and Rowan 41. I have several that I really like and I’m not sure what to start first. I usually say I don’t like to knit for the warm weather, but after the cruise I feel a new-found interest in knitting warm weather garments (which is a good thing since I have a lot more summer weight yarn in my stash than I realized).
sunset.jpg
sunset in St. Maarten

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22 thoughts on “Caribbean Knitting”

  1. Oooh, la, la. And here I was just thinking that it’s been a while since we’ve heard from SCK.
    Off to Martinique myself at the end of March. Cannot. Wait.

  3. Love the St. Maarten pic! That vacation sounds awesome. So tell me – were you able to go off on your own or did you feel compelled to do group activities? I think a cruise sounds really nice but I worry that I’d just want to hole up and knit and ignore everything but my husband and the view. :)
    Cables lookin’ good too….

  4. Welcome back! Beautiful pics!
    I used MF wool for the first time for my Red Scarf — ick!! Too squeaky! I’m kinda surprised you like it but the sweater is gorgeous!

  7. sounds like a lovely vacation, sorry you have to come back to such impending bad weather! the aran looks great, i really like the cabling pattern

  9. sounds like a fun vacation! god, i could really use some downtime and sun right about now.
    i’ve always wanted to knit with MF wool. i really enjoyed the cotton, but it’s not for every project with its nubbiness.

  14. By chance did you wash your swatch? I ask this because I knit a sweater in Missions falls only to find out that it streched out terribly when washed. I should have a) knit it on smaller needles and b) had a clothes dryer to shrink in back into shape. Hopefully you were smarter than I was, live and learn!
    Your vacation looks wonderful–I’ve got a raging icestorm at the moment.
    Patty

  15. hey! we were in st. maarten at the same time! i was there for the week as opposed to a cruise port (although many years ago i was there for a day via a cruise). i wonder if we were at Orient the same day? Now THAT would have been a blog story, eh, running into each other?

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