Kim’s Stitches East Report

I’m just home from Stitches East and I had a fantasticly fiberlicious time!  It began with the Thursday night market preview.  Here’s a picture of knitters waiting at the gate to get in –

They actually let us in from the hallway about 20 minutes before opening, and then made countdown announcements every 5 or so minutes before they let us through the “big gate”.  As expected, it was a stampede, with lots of us heading straight for the Blue Moon booth.  I waved at Rebecca as I passed her booth, telling her I’d be back later.  She knew exactly where I was headed, and laughed.

I’d planned to get some of the heavyweight Socks That Rock for a special project, but unfortunately they brought very little of the heavyweight to Stitches.  I still chose one colorway, even though I wished I’d had more of a choice.  I also got a couple skeins of the mediumweight just because I was caught up in the frenzy.   And that was a sign of things to come, because in the next hour I made 2 more, um, larger purchases before I even stopped to catch my breath.  Those were made at Webs and at Woolstock Knit Shop.  If you’ve ever been to Stitches, you’ll recognize that Woolstock is the booth that always has the big “diving bin” of yarns at 50% off retail.  I finally got some Noro Silk Garden.  I had always passed on it before, not knowing what I would do with it, but now I have a plan.  And I got some Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran in a pretty purple.  It’s the yarn I used to make the Breath of Fresh Air Vest, which gets lots of compliments whenever I wear it.  I’ll probably design another vest with the purple. Here’s a picture of what I added to my stash in the first night alone:

Isn’t it just sinfully delicious? You’ll notice some more of my all-time favorite yarn there — Kathmandu Aran Tweed. I’ve already made 2 sweaters in this yarn, and have some of it in purple also. So now I have enough to make at least 2 more sweaters in it. In case you’re wondering — yes, they’re for ME! I don’t think I could bear to give away anything I make in this yarn. Seriously.

On Friday I had a full-day class with Lily Chin, who surpassed all my (very high) expectations as a teacher.  She’s all you’ve heard and more.  She’s organized, prepared, and enthusiastic.  And she learned the names of all 20 students in the class before the morning coffee break.  No kidding, she memorized our names and used them during the day whenever she spoke to us.  I think she made every person in the room feel important.  And she kept control of the class better than anyone else I’ve ever had as a teacher at a Stitches event.  And that’s sometimes a big problem.  Last summer I actually left a class halfway through because the teacher failed to maintain control of the students when they wouldn’t be quiet.  Now that was very disappointing, not to mention the waste of money.

Friday evening I met up with Jodi Lewanda and her friends for dinner.  Jodi has been tech editing my patterns for several months and we had never met face-to-face, so this was a real treat.   It was a bit of a leap on my part (and hers too for that matter) to make dinner plans with each other, not knowing if we’d get along or not.  But I was very pleasantly surprised and had a wonderful time.  Jodi and her friends were all great and I now consider them my friends.  We went to a Cuban restaurant for dinner (based on a recommendation from one of the girls’ brother or something…).  Wow, it was good.  It was called the Babalu Grill and was in a very cool restaurant district not far from the Harbor (walking distance).

Saturday was supposed to be my day to help Rebecca in her booth and do a bit more market browsing.  But I woke up with a bad headache (nooo, I didn’t drink too much at dinner the night before!), and didn’t get to the market until after noon.  I was glad to see that Amanda, Gillian and Meghan were already there helping her out though.  It was my first time to meet them — Amanda is a friend of a friend.  It’s like a chain friendship that grew over the past year or so at different events — I introduced my friend Rebecca to Tam.  Tam later introduced her friend Amanda to Rebecca.  Then Rebecca introduced her new friend Amanda to me.  And Amanda’s friends Gillian (she prefers to be called “GilliGan”) and Meghan.  Pretty cool, huh?

Here’s a picture we took in Rebecca’s booth just before we left for dinner:

Boy did we have a blast on Saturday — all afternoon and then continuing into dinner.  We went to a tapas restaurant, where we had great food and acted like silly kids for hours.  It was the most fun I’ve had for ages.  And it was made even better when Rebecca picked up the tab for our entire meal — thanks Rebecca!  (Although I would’ve stopped after the first margarita if I knew she was going to insist on paying…oops.) Here are Gillian and Rebecca mugging for the camera:

And here’s part of our dinner before we devoured it — yum!

I added more to my yarn stash during the day Saturday too, but forgot to take pictures of it.  (Or maybe I thought it didn’t really count against the yarn budget if it wasn’t in a picture – ha!)  I made some new and promising contacts with yarn companies while I was there too, and may end up doing some designing for a couple of my favorites. 

All in all, this was an exceptional weekend.  I had a wonderful time meeting new friends, learning new things about a craft I love, seeing a city I’d never seen before and finding out it was a really “happening” place, and lots more.   Very satisfying on many levels.  I’m counting my blessings (and yarn) today.

P.S.  Don’t forget to stop back at my blog on Thursday — it’s my day on the blog book tour for Donna Druchunas’ new book, Ethnic Knitting Discovery.  I’ll be posting pics of my design swatches and talking about the design process for a sweater, based upon the ideas in her book.

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