Vacation and Knitting

Last week I went on my annual family vacation to Lake Tahoe and had a great time. I always enjoy getting to spend a week with my family, smelling the pine trees and gazing out at the beautiful blue waters of the lake. I was especially excited to go this year because my fiance got to go with me for the first time and I got to spend some time with my two year old neice.

As usual, I took some knitting with me. I fell in love with the Essential Cardigan from the Summer 2010 issue of Interweave Knits, so I found some stash yarn that would work (Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool) and brought it along. I thought this would be a great vacation project because of all the mindless stockinette stitch, with the end product being a beatiful and classic cardigan that I could wear for years to come.

I was not smart and decided to wind up 1000 yards of yarn on my ball winder the night before I was leaving. I had quite a sore arm the next morning when we left at 6:00AM, but it certainly didn't prevent me from spending a big chunk of the car trip knitting.

During my trip, along with trout fishing, walks along the beach, and playing in the snow, I managed to visit a yarn store and a craft store and added to my already huge yarn stash. I first went to The Wool Tree and found a great selection of worsted weight wools, sock yarns, Noro yarns and a few mohair yarns that would make lovely lace shawls. I even saw a 100% cashmere yarn that I was very tempted to buy, but I resisted and stuck with some Louet Gems in a periwinkle blue, Cascade Heritage Paints in shades of green, Trendsetter Yarns Tonalita in blue/purple/pink, and Noro Kureyon in a bright rainbow shade.

Later in the week I went to Craft Market in Carson City. It is a small craft store hidden away in a corner that I would have never found if my dad hadn't seen their bright yellow truck with a big logo on the side parked by the roadway. They have a pretty good selection of yarns ranging from Cascade to Lion Brand to novelty yarns that I have never heard of. For the most part, the yarns are arranged by color so it is like walking through a fuzzy and soft fibery rainbow. I ended up buying Knitting Fever Whispers in an interesting colorway of grey/orange/sage green, Kertzer Ovation in a bright sunny yellow, and Lion Brand Amazing in fuschia/orange/yellow. I had never seen Amazing before, it is a variegated yarn with long color changes that would be perfect for entrelac.

After a few days without computer access I started to get a little antsy about checking my email.  I found that my dad had a Blackberry so he let me borrow it to use the internet.  Being in a somewhat remote and moutainous area, the connection was lousy and the only way I could get a signal was to stand outside waving my arm around over by the fence.  But I finally did get through, and it was much worth the effort (and even a few mosquito bites) to find an email from the editor of Knitscene.  I will have a pattern in the upcoming Winter/Spring 2011 issue!  Yay! 

All in all, it was a very relaxing week and I was sad to come home. I just love the Tahoe area, I still can't believe how blue the skies are up there. Some day I hope to be able to move away from the big city and live a bit closer to nature.

By the end of my trip I had finished the back of my Essential Cardigan and have now moved on to the fronts.  It is working up pretty fast, this might be the quickest sweater I've made.