Stitches Report

I'm back!

Whew! What a whirlwind of sock knitting! Here is the blow by blow-

Wednesday

Tracy and I head north. We stop at Santana Row in San Jose and shopped at Anthropologie, H & M, the Container Store and Paper Source. We have a nice little thin crust pizza, and soon we were headed to Santa Clara, just one exit farther on the 101. We pass giant Yahoo! corporate headquarters and see the rollercoasters of Great America. We get rained on slightly. That was the last time I felt fresh air until Sunday afternoon.

At the hotel, we check in to our lovely little contemporary hotel room, and then go check out the pre-knitting scene. We see lots of Silicon Valley businesspeople in suits hanging out in the lobby, and as time passed, they were replaced with women carrying lots of tote bags, one with a "got gauge?" t-shirt on. We see where registration will take place the next day, but it is quiet. We eat sushi, bring out the knitting in the bar area, and talk with the few knitters we start to see. We are in bed around 9. Party on!

Thursday

We have a coffee bar breakfast, and notice we are surrounded by a lot more knitters than yesterday. No businessmen, every chair being occupied by knitters. We go to registration, and are 3rd in line. So excited!!

Tracy walks me to the theater, site of the opening day event, and then says good-bye, having to get back home to her kiddos. I miss her, but then the day begins.

The opening session is Cat Bordhi, Lucy Neatby, and Sandi Rozner talking socks. So excellent. Sorry for the fuzzy photo, it was kind of far away. I am instantly in sock heaven. Lunch was okay, and then after a short break, classes start. I LOVED learning to knit backwards. No turning when doing entrelac, etc. I am so ready to make entrelac socks! I loved Candace Eisner-Strick. She has such a hysterical sense of humor. I would love to take more classes from her.

After class it was time for the Ravelry meet - up. I got my "Hello my name is" button, and meet up with a few local folks that I knew from Ravelry but had never met in person. I also got to meet Jess and Casey, the brains behind Ravelry. They were so young! And seemed quite overwhelmed by the tremendous response they are getting. Here is Casey--

Then it was time to get in line for the Market Opening! Yarn overload! I dashed to the Ravelry booth and got a totebag and then went straight to Blue Moon Fiber Arts to replenish the Socks That Rock stash. Me and lots of others, the line was crazy.

Here is my score from the first night --

Friday

Six hours of Cat Bordhi. What else can I say. I took a photo of her teaching me Judy's Magic Cast-on, but for some reason it didn't copy onto the computer. I will try again. I met up with my friend I met last year, Kathryn, who I sat with at the fashion show and dinner. She made this awesome Swallowtail Shawl, and is getting me the instructions to make mine bigger, since I'm using teeny yarn and mine will end up being up the size of a bandana if I don't.

I also had a lunchtime session with Vickie Howell. The session was boring, but it was fun spotting her all over Stitches each day. I like her hair color.

Saturday

Six hours of Lucy Neatby, the other sock genius. Here is the table of her socks, and the photo of her vest she wore. She also wore a hand-sewn jumper of rainbow cats and vertical stripes, a green t-shirt underneath, and two different birkenstocks, one orange and one with daisies. She had tiny sock earrings, and purple hair. And a British accent. Cool. I loved her. I learned so much from her, it was easy to overlook the clownish exterior. I bought two of her DVD's, both about socks of course.

Saturday night brought the student banquet, which was kinda boring, but I won a door prize! 100 dollars at the Knitting Arts booth, which I had fun spending.

Sunday

I was met by Mom and Carey and I ditched my last class in favor of sleeping later (7) and hitting the market sooner to spend my 100 dollars. We shopped till we dropped and then loaded up the car and headed home. I got home around 7, exhausted, and so not ready to face another week.

I had a really nice time at Stitches and am ready to try my hand at designing socks to enter XRX's sock contest. Now I just need an idea....

Jean stays warm!

hat & mitts
Originally uploaded by yarnpaperscissors

Yes, more proof that my knits get out more than I do. I haven't seen anything like snow at all this year. Here is Jean showing her mitts and hat in Wisconsin. Brrr.

Let's send a little springtime her way. I won't tell her that the trees are blooming here. We miss you Jean!

Hooray for the camera!

I got my new camera. Yay! I'm still learning how to use it, so sorry these photos aren't the greatest.

Finished my fuzzy drop stitch scarf/wrappy thing. It is now entitled "Drop Stitch Scarf". This was made with one ball of Artfibers Tsuki in a really deep teal color that does not show up on this new camera very well.

It took me a LONG time to finish this. Lets just say that this was started after I went to Stitch n Pitch. In 2006. I dug it out during the great Yarn Organization of 2008 (hooray for spacebags!). I used up every smige of yarn I could, while ending on the correct row of the pattern repeat. For Tracy, who secretly thinks I cheated and ended early because I was whining so much, here is the proof-

I am on a Stitches countdown. I leave Wednesday. I think I will be leaving my computer at home this year. It will give me a little more down time if I don't have to upload photos and post to the blog. Last year I had a major case of "too much stimulation" and my brain got overloaded from all the classes, people, and yarn to look at. This year I am going to try to relax a little more. Maybe even sleep. I will take the camera and post when I get home.

I won't be finishing any more knitting between now and then I'm sure, but maybe I'll sneak another post in before I go.

Use your imagination

Hi guys -

Still no camera, so pretend you are seeing photos of my nearly completed teal fuzzy scarf.

Isn't it lovely? The Willy Wonka everlasting ball-o-yarn may actually be shrinking.

Now pretend you are seeing the Swallowtail shawl, but thinking to yourself, "I swear it looked like that last time." Not much progress. Why? Because I'm trying to get the other project DONE.

And, I am doing my Stitches homework. The borders class has five different swatches. That one is done. I also finished the swatch for the Thursday class, "The art of knitting backwards." I just love the thought of that. It is so Knit Geek-like. Two more classes to go and those are the sock classes. They recommend using non sock yarn and I'm having trouble pulling that together without buying yarn specifically for the class, which I'm not that excited about doing. But I need to get it in gear since Stitches is COMING SOON!

I am looking forward to going to the Ravelry meeting at Stitches, and getting myself some Ravelry stuff.

I'm also looking forward to getting myself a new camera. Soon. Then you won't have to use your imagination.