Stitches Midwest, Part 2

Even more information about Stitches Midwest including a comparison with Stitches West and the TKGA Fiberarts Market, what I thought was overrated, and pics!

The pics
First up we have the Socks That Rock:

Unfortunately, K has already taken her sock yarn, so I don't have a pic of it. I'm not sure what the verdict is on how well I know K, but I think I did pretty well.

Next up is a Nature Speak pattern I bought:

The other pattern booklet, I'm feeling too guilty to post. You see, the pictures are *really* ugly, but I liked some of the design elements/construction. It's just that the pictures as a whole look too awful to post. They use the most horribly colored (bright neon fugliness) hand dyed yarn ever. So I'm not sharing that one.

The market comparison
When I first walked in I thought, Oh my god this is so much bigger than Stitches West!!! Later I realized it wasn't actually that much bigger because a large chunk of the space was taken up by the concession area. It was definitely much much larger than the TKGA Fiberarts Market. For instance, Habu's booth must have been three times bigger. There were more East Coast and less West Coast vendors at SM than SW. All of my favorite vendors from SW were at SM, but there were new faves I found at SM that will not be at SW: Blue Moon Fiber Arts (makers of Socks that Rock) and Kimmet Croft Yarns. My faves that were at both: Tess's, Hand Jive Knits, Shelridge Farm, Habu, and Webs. There was also Moving Mud Buttons, a handmade glass button vendor, at SM and SW that I really liked. I talked to the guy manning the booth, and he said that you can send in a snippet of your yarn, and they will custom make buttons to coordinate with your yarn for no extra charge. How friggin' awesome is that? Also, Helen's Half Pint Farm was the cheapest booth for Addi Turbos at SM/W.

One thing that saved me from buying a lot of yarn at SM is that Webs did not implement their 25% off everything with purchase of $120 or more. They marked items as NFD (No Further Discount) if the prices were greatly discounted (like they do on their website). They also did this last year at SM. At SW, on the other hand, they said that it was too much trouble to track which items were NFD and which were not, so everything applied to the 25% off bonus. I also felt that Webs' offerings were much better at SW.

What I thought was overrated
I think there was a vendor at SW that had some qiviut, but I didn't think to stop and feel it then. I took a better look at SM, and I was less impressed than I expected. The same booth carried some suri alpaca laceweight which I thought was much silkier and prettier. So I won't be shelling out for the qiviut anytime soon. Good to know.

Oh, I forgot to mention the curly mohair yarn that I thought was pretty cool, but at $25/skein? Maybe if I had a specific project in mind that could incorporate it tastefully. The picture here does not do it justice because you can't see what the strands really looks like. It was curly funky stuff.

Lily Chin's new line of yarn. I felt some up and was not at all interested in them. They are similar to other yarns that already exist and aren't particularly great. I am not a fan.

Some of the cashmere yarns were just low quality and not very soft. Cheap, yes, but why not buy a good quality merino instead? I think some buyers are going by the label, not the actual quality of the yarn which you can feel and see. In general there were some yarns that were made from luxury fibers, but the actual feel wasn't so great. Either because low quality fiber was used or because it was blended with something of lower quality.

Ok, that's all I've got on Stitches. Next up: The packages I got when I returned home AKA how I managed to restrain myself at Stitches.