Left to Right: A Verb for Keeping Warm alpaca/silk blend in "February Sky", Dream in Color Smooshy in"Ruby River" picked up at Purlescence for a Ravelry friend, some ArtYarns SuperMerino from the Knitmore Girls goody bags, a tiny skein of Habu ramie, some Malabrigo Silky Merino, and BMFA Rare Gems that looks a little like Jabberwocky gone wrong.
I took the Stitch'n'Ride train down to Santa Clara from Oakland. The train thing was kind of underwhelming, but I can see how it would have been cool/useful/more fun if I had been coming from Richmond like I originally thought, or with a friend. Oakland was the last stop and the train was pretty full, so I ended up doing math to try to fix the Noro knee sock I've been working on during the brief ride down.
I was off by one row when I measured the gauge in that thing, and a hundred rows into the calf shaping that means the sock is an entire inch shorter than its supposed to be, and sagging. My knitting for the day was really just me tinking back a few rows. I'm not done tinking, but that project has been put aside until I'm a little less mad about it... again.
Wandered the market and accumulated pretties for Mary Catherine and myself. That was defintiely an aspect to Sticthes I'd like to repeat again: she sent me a note on Ravelry about her tastes in yarn and things she'd like to tryout that she can't source locally, a bit of money on PayPal, and I got to shop some more without really breaking budget. Turns out I'm not necessarilly attached to keeping the stuff I buy.
Met up with Sonya, the fearless leader of the Mushroom Swap, who then whisked me away to the Verb booth and introduced me to Kristine, Adrienne, and Michael. They were all super nice, and I recognized his voice from the YKnit podcast. I got kind of overwhelmed by all the pretties in the booth, and wandered away again towards the Purlescence booth in the back. Their space was rt next to the snack bar seating area, so it was a pretty great chill space, with several spinning wheels set up, overflowing to the big round tables of ppl chatting. I got to spend a little bit of time talking to Jasmin and Gigi from the Knitmore Girls podcast before their Meet'n'Greet really kicked off, and Jasmin gave me a goody bag with yarn in it that was both good and free, so of course I love her now. When I went by that booth again towards the end of the day I spent a little bit of time talking to Tika, who just began podcasting as well. She had a press pass and a ca mera, and thus has the only good pictures from the show floor that I've seen here. I stopped trying to take pictures the 2nd time I got yelled at.
I hung out at Verb talking to Kristine and Sonya for a long time while cradling various yarns and trying to pick one to take home. I'm really interested in all the natural and plant dyes that Krisitne uses, and loved listening to her talk about them. I walked away with something totally unexpected for me, but I love it despite having no idea what I'm going to make with it.
Stitches was basically awesome, and now I'm super-excited about Stitches South and taking classes... less than 9 wks!
I'm glad you had a good time. Picking up good deals at Stitches is always heart warming!!! :) See you soon back in great pollen-ridden Chattanooga.
Posted by: April | March 12, 2009 at 06:54 PM