Stitches Midwest Recap

So I went to Stitches Midwest yesterday. I was *extremely* well behaved. My rules were pretty simple: No handpainted yarn except for socks. (I love the look of handpainted yarns in the hank but am always disappointed when they are knitted. I must come to accept this fact.) Do not buy a yarn if I won't knit it before Stitches West and if that vendor will be at Stitches West. Do not buy a yarn I already have in my stash. Only buy yarn that I can't get near home unless it is unbelievably cheap. (The last three really cut out a lot.)

So what did I buy? A couple patterns which I'll have to put pictures of up later. Those were really impulse purchases. The real goodies were three hanks of Socks That Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I love their dyeing. That is all I bought. There were several other things I was very tempted in, but most of those will be available at Stitches West. Part of what really helped me keep my purchasing down was to focus on getting those around me to buy yarn instead. :-) I managed to convince Jamie to buy a great cabled raglan kit from Shelridge Farm:

I might have to buy that at Stitches West for myself. I love their fingering weight yarn. And Buffy recognized me! We talked about how K and I had planned to go to Shelridge Farm when we were in Canada for my wedding, but it never did work out. Someday...

So after Stitches, a bunch of us met up at a friend's house to show off what we'd bought, what we planned to do with it, and what we almost bought but didn't. That was lots of fun. It was nice to see that a lot of my almost-purchases were made by someone else and to see a lot of good stuff that I missed the three times I circled the floor. Other things that tempted me was a sweater kit of Kimmet Croft Yarns for a blue yoked cardigan pattern in Poems of Color. It was so much softer knitted up than it felt in the skein. I was walking by the booth and felt a sweater as I went by. It was soooo soft I had to stop and fondle everything in the booth! A couple other SnBers bought yarn from Kimmet Croft, but I just grabbed a brochure so I could order later.

I also eyed Hanne Falkenberg's Diva Kit which I am in love with, except the yarn is a bit scratchy considering the cost:

I really wish I could buy the pattern separately and knit it using Shelridge Farm's Soft Touch Ultra or maybe yarn from Hand Jive Knits. Unfortunately you can only buy the pattern as part of the kit which they were selling for $250 (YIKES), but I could buy it from Europe for half that. I admit, I tried to get a good close look at the sweater to see how to knit it, but the woman at the booth hovered over me a bit too much, and I felt guilty for doing so. It doesn't seem that difficult except for getting the short row shaping in the collar just right. Also, I don't know how she does the single color edging around the entire sweater. I'll have to experiment with that.

And speaking of Hand Jive Knits, I talked to Darlene (the one woman operator) and asked her if she would do a demonstration of how she dyes her yarn. I'm particularly interested in her dyeing because she does all natural dyeing which I think is awesome. So I'm going to see if we can round up a posse of Bay Area knitters to head over there someday. Would anybody be interested in that?

How well do I know K?
And here we get to the "How well do I know K?" portion of the post. One of the three Socks That Rock hanks I bought was for K. (So see, I really only bought two for myself.) So, let's see which colorway K would have chosen for herself from these (scroll down). That doesn't have all the colors, but it does have the one I got her. I think the colors are a little off there. They seem richer in real life. I'll post pictures of the actual yarn I bought after I get back home to my camera and after K tells me what color she really wanted.