I spent Thursday and Friday this week at Stitches West, in Santa Clara. I'd show you pictures, but they are militant about not allowing photos. No idea why, because the reason they claim -- that you might take a picture of a designer's work and copy it -- makes no sense. I mean, you can see pictures of sweaters or other things all over the internet, often on the designer's own web site, so how would snapshots of your friends and yarn at a show make a difference?
Anyway, I took two classes, my first time taking classes there. On Thursday afternoon I took "Fiendishly Difficult Stitches" With Merike Saarniit. It was tons of fun. We did four different Estonian stitches (well, one wasn't Estonian, but it might as well have been). Here's my swatch from the class:
I recommend the class to any advanced knitter who is looking to try something challenging for a change.
Yesterday I took an all-day class on pattern writing which was very useful, if not exactly what I was hoping for (I was looking for something more about sizes and math and that sort of thing, while this was more about technical writing; it was still a very good class). The exercise for that class was hand-writing a sweater pattern, and I will spare you that one.
I also enjoyed the market preview and visiting the market during breaks on Friday. I usually like to go on the Friday to the market, because it is less crazy than Saturday, but this Friday was still totally effing insane.
I got a fun little range of things. From the top left, clockwise, a combined measuring tape and pen freebie from a vendor, a roll of highlighter tape for charts, a spinning gauge tool, a package of tubes for storing double-pointed needles, another package with a couple tubes that are slit open so you can store a work in progress, a little pink plastic case that securely holds stitch markets (I seem to lose lots of stitch markers), and a little plastic freebie case from another vendor. I also got a set of blocking wires for lace, but they don't photograph particularly nicely, so I left them out.
And of course I got some yarn.
The big red hank is 500 yards of singles silk from Blue Moon Fiber Arts (you have to dash right to their booth at the beginning of the market preview to have anything like selection), then moving right a hank of Malabrigo Sock (superwash merino), Girl From Auntie sock yarn, and Madeleintosh Sock. Yes, I do know I bought two skeins of the same colour. Apparently I really like orange.
It was a good time. I'll probably skip Stitches classes next year and maybe do Madrona instead, but I always enjoy looking around at the market.
And since I had to be in Santa Clara at 8:30am, I stayed over in a hotel Thursday night. Not internet access, so I brought my spinning wheel, and finished one bobbin and got a nice start on the last one:
I am really getting much better at long draw, and if I hadn't had to stop so often to remove vegetal matter from the fiber, I would have made even more progress. I have one more batt of the black alpaca left to spin, and it has to get done before the end of the Olympics. I think I can do that in a few hours, maybe tonight. But now it's time to go to an orchid show, because I really don't have enough obscure, expensive, and time-consuming hobbies.
