Ok, who knew I was there anyway? I took some great classes which I will describe over the next few days. I met some nice people, and some not-so-nice people. I bought some cool stuff, and learned a lot!
I’ll try and update this later in the week with some pictures of the goodies. UPDATE: I’ve added the pictures today (Feb 25).
The shopping
I bought some Microfiber Ribbon from Next was a bag of Noro Kureyon from Webs. Strangely, I am thinking of a raglan sweater again, but maybe with black sleeves and edgings, I don’t know. We’ll have to see. UPDATE: In the photo, you can also see a skein of some yarn I won at the Student Banquet. It seems to be a worsted weight wool. It was dontated by Carolina Homespun, along with some dyes and the book Yarns to Dye For : Creating Self-Patterning Yarns for Knitting so I will be sending them a thank you note and asking what I’ve got here, in case I want more. It’s lovely and soft.

Next is two skeins of bamboo from Habu. I still love my scarf from a few years ago and it’s holding up great, so I bought two more skeins so I can make a larger scarf out of it. It’s a red color, sort of brick red, I guess.

I also bought a tiny skein of cashmere in a green variegated color. It’s only 1/2 ounce, but should make a nice cravat-length scarf.
I picked up some books. The Opinionated Knitter by Elizabeth Zimmerman, and The Anarchist Knitter by Anna Zilboorg. The first I have wanted to pick up for a while because it has a few good garments in it, and lots of great attitude. The latter I have been looking for a while, and was happy to find it at the market. I read the whole book by Saturday night, I think. There was a lot in it that I have already figured out on my own, but there was also a lot that was a new way of looking at or exploring things. She has a great idea of working out cable design by cutting a bunch of lengths of differently colored yarns and arranging them on the table until you get a design you like, and then try turning that into a cable. Brilliant! I can imagine doing some of those crazy reversing and starting from nowhere cables by using this technique on a block of foam with some pins. I can’t wait to try it.

I also bought some rayon cord in a few colors but I can’t recall the vendor. The colors are lovely and bright, and I have a ton of beads at home that will work well for creating a beaded scarf or something. Although I don’t relish stringing the beads before knitting. I may try crocheting instead. UPDATE: It’s Swallow Hill that makes the cord I bought.

So that’s all for the shopping, I think. UPDATE: I was wrong! I forgot some Koigu I bought. I picked up two skeins in the darker shade here, that I have propped up on a skein I had bought in the past. I think they go together well. I prefer their “nearly solids” or whatever they call them. I still don’t know what I’ll do with them, but I’ll be ready when I figure it out.
The People
I met some lovely people just sitting around in the bar, and didn’t even get their names but they were nice to chat with between classes or during lunches. I observed some people dining alone inviting the hostess to bring another lone diner to join them rather than making them wait alone for a table. Very cool. I had dinner and drinks with some Stitch n’ Bitch pals and that was a lot of fun. I saw Joan M-M at White Lies Designs and said hello. I missed some people I would have like to have met had I known they were in town, like Flory and Rebecca. Ah well, there is next year.
All of the teachers were great, and Rick Mondragon is a perfect stereotype, which really made me laugh because I had heard all about him but seeing him in person was a hoot. I have to say, anyone with boots as cool as those gold ones is OK with me, even if I don’t like his magazine. I have a thing for fun shoes, what can I say?
There was one thing that really bugged me though. It’s not knitters specifically, but I think it’s women in general, of which there were plenty at Stitches West. Women are so helpful and generous to a point, but if they see you approaching their skill level, or even something they want, they can be competitive as a boxer on fight night. I saw it all over the place, from the mob for coffee where people would just ignore the 40 people waiting in line and go right to the front, to people hiding their knitting because they don’t want to give away their secrets! One woman was wearing an interesting thing around her neck and I asked if it was her own pattern or something commercially available. It held her crochet hooks and cable needles and stitch markers and a tape measure and I thought it was very clever. She actually put it out of sight and said it was her invention, clearly not wanting to let me ‘steal’ her idea. Whatever. One of the spools of rayon cord will become my own version of that thing because it looks quite handy. Unless I decide to use cotton instead.
My everyday project is an idea I got from Kay over at Mason Dixon Knitting where she mentions doing the Barbara Walker’s Learn-to-Knit Afghan Book. I have had the book for some time, and when I saw that Kay was doing it in denim, well, *ding*ding*ding* the light bulb went off and I dug out the couple of balls of denim I had picked up a few months ago to play with. I had three colors but needed four, so went on a search and found a great price at elann.com on three colors. One of the colors was new, and one was missing from my sample balls, so I supplemented at my LYS on the darkest color and then I was off!
I am telling you all this because it’s hard to knit for 6 hours in class and then work on denim as your side project for relaxation. You get the owies in the shoulder (also caused by carrying your shopping on your shoulder!) and by Saturday night I was pooped! I took 6 classes all together, and it was actually ok, although when I got home my husband was trying to rub my shoulders and noticed they were hard as rocks. I’ll have to go to the chiro this weekend and get it all worked out.
One good thing about the project though is that it’s portable (one square at a time) and I can work on things that I want to learn, like combined knitting, eastern crossing and uncrossing and deciding what works for my hands and what doesn’t. I haven’t quite figured out the way to increase and decrease yet in the various methods, but probably will be able to do that when I get to the lace swatches in the afghan.
Overall, I had a great time and I hope there are some interesting classes so I can do it again next year!