Stitched Back Together


I'm back from my gal pal weekend at Stitches West with my Knitsisters. We had a fibery, yarny, patterny, foody, and winey good time. There's too much to post all in one entry, so I'll spread it out. As for the wonderful array of yarn I got, and by array, I do mean a lot, I'll show you the mountain of it at the bottom, and spread it out... maybe feature a new yarn a day.

Jillian and I high-tailed it up to Santa Clara and made it a speedy drive. After our first stop at the registration desk, we immediately found our knit gals at the bar! Here we are:


(l to r) Jillian, Madge, Marie, Annette (seated), friend Gwen, and me
Special thanks to Jillian for the pic. I had so much fun that I didn't take very many pics there. Better to enjoy the moment than miss it while I'm trying to take the picture, that's my motto. I finally met Ellen Bloom of LA is My Beat and had a blast hanging with her. What a hoot! She attributed buying more yarn to me, and I was honored that I could impact such a yarn guru veteran as she.

We got to preview the marketplace on Thursday evening for two hours, but unfortunately weren't supposed to snap any photos while in there. I'll start with the jewelry portion of my take home booty:


zero stitchmarkers from the Bay Area Knit Coop. I have been eyeing her etsy shop for weeks, but haven't found exactly what I've wanted so far. I was lucky to snap these up while I could. I met Cookie and Kristi there but more on that later. Suffice it to say, they were uber cool and so fun. At the risk of appearing to be a stalker, it made me want to keep going back and back and back again for yarn, patterns and more yarn.

Creative Designs Unlimited had this beautiful mother of pearl dragon pendant on a silk cord. Even better, she put it in a Chinese red envelope as her packaging. Loved it!

The black and white pendant on the left was made by Harlan Designs. I was drawn to the ying-yang look of it. Debbie's Gardens had these mahjong tiles as stitchmarkers. They were a bit too big for stitchmarkers for my tastes, but she was kind enough to split up her set and sell them to Jillian and me individually as pendants. It caught on, because later I met a couple of other ladies who also bought some. I got lucky number 8 and fat choy, the good luck character, because a gal's gotta get all the luck she can.

Blue Moon was the second booth I hit that first night, and I scored three skeins of STR (after waiting in a very long line).

Heavyweight Jasper on the left, Lightweight Lemongrass in the middle, and Heavyweight Sun Stone on the right. Here's the Lemongrass cake, ready for partaking.

Witness the mountain of yarny goodness. Ahhhhh....

Next post, read about the inherent kindness of knitters, and Cookie A.