As promised, goodies from Stitches

Never let it be said that I don't honor my promises. I might be a little late but it does eventually get done. I had a wonderful time at Stitches. If you have never been and you get the opportunity, you have to jump on it! This was my second time and it was just as good or better than my first. I took 3 classes: Forgotten Meshes with Ruth Lantz, Celtic Cables with Melissa Leapman, and Russian Style Continental Knitting with Galeena Khmerleva (sp?) I would highly recommend any one of these instructors. Ruth has a 3 hr class just on cast ons and another class on various methods of binding off. They are definitely on my agenda as possibles for next year. Melissa was marvelous despite being sick as a dog and I absolutely love homework assignment number 3. As a matter of fact, I think it is going to end up being a square in my Great American Afghan. There are a couple of squares in the pattern that I am not that fond of so this will be a great substitute. I will try to get a picture once I finish it and block it. Galeena was a wonderful surprise. I had heard she was good and she was but I hadn't heard what a sly sense of humor she has. She was wonderful and I would love to take a lace class from her.

Okay, okay! Enough with the typing and on to the pictures. Market preview on Thursday night cost me a lot of money. So what else is new? My first purchase was at Woolstock, the same place where I found my wonderful Noro Kureyon last year. This year I found a bag of 10 balls of Muskat. They tell me it is a cotton but I can't read the label. It is absolutely gorgeous and even though I have no idea what it will become, I simply had to have it.
Don't you agree? It's just luscious!

Then it was on to Blue Moon Fiber Arts. They had a huge line of people buying Socks that Rock and I had to jump on that bandwagon too. After all, everybody who is everybody has knit with Socks that Rock, haven't they? I ended up with a heavyweight skein in a colorway called Rare Gems. Apparently, Rare Gems are colorways that don't meet the approval of the dyer and will, therefore, never be repeated. She may not have liked it but I sure do. What do you think?


For someone who claims she is not a sock knitter, I seem to have ended up with a lot of sock yarn. Ergo: this yummy sock yarn from Full Thread Ahead. Actually, that is its name, "Yummy", and it is a special edition colorway available only at Stitches this year.

It suits its name, don't you think? It wasn't until Sunday that I decided what to do with it. I recently bought a pattern called Marvelous Mitts by Karendipity who is on Etsy It calls for a solid color yarn knit with a variegated yarn as background to make these gorgeous Fair Isle fingerless mitts. I finally decided that a Royal Blue Koigu would really make them pop! Am I right?

The acquisition of sock yarn continued! I attended the student banquet on Saturday night and came home with two skeins which were donated by the sponsors of Stitches. Here is Wool in the Woods Cherub in the colorway Birches. I saw a sample of it knitted up into a sock and it really does look like birchbark.

And then there is Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the color Sunburst. Definitely out of my normal color selection but absolutely gorgeous!


Finally on Sunday I returned one last time to the Beehive. I kept finding myself at this shop all through the show and I knew I had to make a purchase there. After all, the shop is in Victoria BC, the Handmaiden yarn is dyed in Vancouver and the Fleece Artist yarn is dyed in Nova Scotia. Have I mentioned before that I am a Canadian? You see why I absolutely had to have some yarn from this shop. Here is Casbah, an 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon blend. It is soooooo soft. Once again, I don't know what it is going to be but it feels sooo good it deserves two pictures.

The second one is probably closest to the actual color.

Incredibly, I didn't buy a single book or pattern this year. I guess that is because I already have so much on my plate already. But watch out next year!