This post has been a long time coming since these images are from back in November when Erik and I visited his parents in Placerville, CA. I am finally feeling rested and recharged from our “holiday break”, which consisted of watching TV, getting reacquainted with World of Warcraft and the new expansion, and knitting! Knitting has become one of my secondary passions – something that I love to do in my spare time to relax. Lisa taught me to knit a couple of years ago, and I feel so lucky to have been taught but such an extremely talented artist and knitter. As you may know, I LOVE color, and Lisa creates the most amazing colorways, it makes me want to create something just as fabulous! Since Erik and I started dating 6+ years ago (now THAT sounds crazy to me), I have been fascinated by Lisa’s process for creating yarn. I saw her website pretty early on and was blown away that someone actually “makes” yarn. I still really couldn’t comprehend the extent of it, and just like any creative art, there is SO much more that goes into it than just buying some fiber and dunking it in some colors. As a photographer most people think we just show up for a wedding or portrait session and we are done. Yes, we have amazing jobs, but that is just a small piece of what we actually do! I will get into that in another post, but I will say that I foolishly didn’t realize the amount of work and creativity involved in creating what Lisa creates. She makes it look easy!
In the past year since our visit from last Christmas, the Souza’s added a “little house” or “mini-me” as I call it. It is a studio space / guest house, and a smaller version of their “big” house. This was where Erik and I stayed for our visit – and it was heaven. It was almost like staying at a bed and breakfast. Placerville is extremely quiet, and we spent most of our vacation being more relaxed than I ever remember being. We took a drive up to Lake Tahoe, stopping to take in the beauty along the way, we spent some time in small-town historic Placerville, and we re-watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. And, I got to spend some time shadowing Lisa as she worked her magic.
Here is a glimpse of part of the studio/guest house where we stayed.
Everyday I would look at all of this amazing yarn and I had the urge to pick them all up and put them in my bag to take home with me. Lucky for me I got a “care package” for Christmas with some of this very yarn.
One of the spinning wheels that Lisa sells and uses herself. Isn’t it pretty?
Here is Lisa in her studio, arming herself with rubber gloves.
Some of the many jars of dyes
Lisa explained that there are MANY techniques involved in applying color to fiber. I got to see 3 different techniques.
Painting:
Pouring:
Soaking:
Neat, huh?
And of course I had to get a picture of her husband Rod, helper-extraordinaire. He reminds me a bit of Erik ; )
Those are my in-laws. I’m pretty lucky, wouldn’t you say? Check out her website if you are in the market for some amazing yarn!
