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!

Well, we have been back for a week, and I am sorry for not posting sooner! After a week of catching up I am ready to post some pictures from our awesome trip to Placerville, CA. Erik and I had a blast, as always, with his parents Rod & Lisa Souza, and we got to spend some time with Lauren (Erik’s sister) and our almost-3-year-old nephew Jacob. I haven’t been THAT relaxed in a very long time! Erik and I did some of our most favorite things – spending time with his family, driving around and taking lots for pictures of the beautiful scenery, eating at In-N-Out Burger (2 times), watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended version), and catching up on sleep! We also had the opportunity to watch the extremely talented Lisa Souza in action – she is one UH-mazingly gifted artist (there will be a future post with images of her at work). Lisa taught me how to knit a couple of years ago, and after almost a year of not knitting, I am SO inspired to knit like crazy after seeing all of her awesome colorways. Yes, I saw her entire stash all in one place – in the guest house/studio where we slept. A color-freaks dream ; ) This is what I do in the off season. Erik plays video games.

On our first day there we headed in to “town” and Erik and I were so amazed to see how much Jake has grown. He didn’t forget us, thank goodness ; )

Jake was trying on hats – his Uncle Erik ended up buying him this one.

We got to play some ball! Here is Lauren sending it home:

Rod:

and Jake!

He eventually figured out that it is easier to hit the ball with his eyes open, but it took some practice.

Then Lisa, Rod, Erik and I drove up to Jenkinson Lake. We found this cool stump:

It was a perfect day! The sky was gorgeous. (especially with my infrared converted camera)

We were walking around a bit and saw a wolf. It was so beautiful. Unfortunately both Erik & I had on our wide lenses to shoot the landscape and we didn’t capture it. We just watched it walking around. I felt so lucky.

Then we headed up into the Sierra. It is so magical there! Here is another infrared:

The moss on the trees was incredible.

I love these trees – they feel like something out of a fantasy movie.

The views up there were breathtaking:

We passed through Silver Lake:

And then to Caples Lake. Apparently they had been draining the lake, which made for a crazy experience! There were many old stumps, and rocks and old objects (Erik found an old Bubble Up Soda bottle which was made in the 70’s) that were buried under the Lake since way back when.

A few years ago Erik and I went to see the Dorothea Lange and Pirkle Jones exhibit at the SF Moma on their documentation of Lake Berryessa before the dam was built. Mind you, the images looked very different, but the exhibit kept coming to mind…Sadly I can’t find any of the images themselves online.

It was like another world.

I will have more to post from our trip for sure. We took so many pictures ; )

Be sure to check out Lisa’s blog for her version – and you can see a picture of Erik & I “chimping“.

Erik and I will be visiting the Souza Family in California for the coming week. We are so excited! We will have limited access to e-mail and will respond as quickly as possible. We will be retuning on Sunday 11/30. Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

I rarely post these types of things, but this video cracked me up! Enjoy!