Carson

I finished a shawl.  It's called Carson. It's a design by Romi, and it was the first time I'd knitted her design. The designer named it Carson because of Carson Valley. And that's where I work, so I knew I had to cast on immediately.

Halfway through the knitting, I got sidetracked. OK, I confess, doing garter stitches is probably my least favorite knitting.  2/3 of the shawl was garter stitches.  Purely my own problem.

Eventually I got back to the project because it was a really lovely design. Also, the next pattern about to come out of the pre-purchased collection is called Zephyr Cove - where I live. Judging from the preview picture, it's all garter stitches.  Oh my, that will be a real test to my patience.

Main color yarn was Quince & Co. Finch, color chantrelle. The yellow yarn for contrast color was dyed with flowers of Rabbit Rubberbrush, something that grew in abundance in the high desert of Carson Valley and in the meadows of Tahoe Basin.

Rabbit Rubberbrush passed its prime.

It came out to be a beautiful shawl and I l like the rather low contrast, harmonious color combination.

I think the high desert of this area is deeply ingrained in me.  I know so many people, my family especially, wonder why I stay in this area, namely Nevada, after living in major metropolitan like Taipei, San Francisco, New York, Washington DC all my life.  Well, I love the mountains, and I love the high desert.  I love the fact that during my commute I started out with being in the tree area and as I descended into the valley, it stretched out in its expansive beauty in front of my eyes.  I first came here for snowboarding, but I stayed for the mountain and for the high desert.

view of Carson City from my work place

Shopping At SOAR Marketplace

So I didn't really have the budget to take classes at SOAR, but I was able to allow myself a little shopping at the marketplace yesterday.  It was my very first time to go to any knitting/fiber event.

Paul and I drove around the lake to Tahoe City.  I was amazed that I could talk him into a shopping trip.  It helped that we just had our first snow this week and the scenery was beautiful.

I spent more money than I should, but I was able to get some fiber I'd never worked with.  Now I'm a bit intimidated by some of the fiber I bought.

I got some camel/silk from A Verb For Keeping Warm.  I so love their colors and I'd never worked with camel.  I also got some Pygora/Merino from Rainbow Farms.  Until yesterday, I'd never even heard of Pygora goats before.  I couldn't resist some Merino/Silk from Opulent fibers, and a hank of merino/tencel yarn from Sincere Sheep because I love the colors.

The highlight was meeting Mr. Ashford..  I felt like such a fan-girl.  I never do that kind of stuff as I'm not into the whole celebrity thing, but it was Mr. Ashford!  I was totally smittened by how nice he was.  He invited me to sit down and spin on the Traditional a bit.  He even got Paul to sit a spin a little, something I could never do.  It was really cute that he asked Paul what to do if he encounters a bear when he found out Paul is a forest ranger.  Elisabeth was also nice to show me the knitter's loom, which I'd love to get one one day.

I had such a good time petting all different fibers.  But it sure was dangerous to go to a marketplace like that and I wanted everything in front of me.  Good thing I had enough self control to only spend the cash I brought and not use credit card.  I must say I was also impressed with Paul's patience.  Going shopping with him was usually the most torturous thing for both him and I, but he actually had not too bad of time seeing things.  He enjoyed meeting with Mr. Ashford as well as loving the display colors of A Verb For Keeping Warm.

I almost forgot to mention I wore my "Autum that Cannot Make Up Her Mind" and I got quite a few complements. I know, I was such an exhibitionist, but I couldn't help it.

My New Pattern & A Pattern Recommendation

Deep gratitude to all the wonderful testers, Bee-Lena, mabuli, stardiver, FemaleDragon, Dragebarn, knitgrl, and chirimoya on Ravelry for their help. All the testing was actually finished quite a while back, but I was too lazy to edit everything and retake some photos, so it just sat there until I saw Chris, aka Doodle sent me a notice of her new pattern yesterday and it reminded me I should get my acts together.

This morning I took a few photos of how it looks wearing it before I set to publish the pattern. I'm such a procrastinator.

The Ripples pattern is now available through Ravelry.

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Make sure you check out Doodle's new Contour wristwarmers.  It's also hot off the press. She published it yesterday. I highly recommend it for the coming cooler season. It was such a fun knit. A picture below my test knit. I'm planning on making more of these.