Stitches and more stitches.....

It has taken me most of the week to recover from the wonderful time I had at Stitches West last weekend.  I was a knitting convention virgin, but I had good guides. My friend MaryLouise and her sister Deirdre have been attending Stitches West regularly for the last several years, so I tagged along with them. 

 

MaryLouise and her husband Dennis live about 15 minutes from the Santa Clara convention center, so they invite me to stay with them.  I used to work with Dennis in Virginia, so it was a great chance to see them both and catch up.  Dennis is also a fantastic cook.   Dennis packed us lunches for Friday and Saturday, so we were able to skip the convention center and hotel food.  He also made us wonderful dinners each night, so we were able to go back to the house for a cocktail and hors d'oeuvres while we compared out yarn acquisitions. Then we were treated to homemade tomato soup and rosemary rack of lamb, swordfish with smoked paprika and pistashio couscous, prosciutto stuffed chicken and asparagus risotto.   

 

 

Flourless lemon almond cake disappearing fast

 

 

We went to the Thursday night registered attendees only session. I decided not to buy any yarn until I had made one pass through the market to scope it all out.  Since we didn't even get through the whole market floor on Thursday night I didn't buy anything on Thursday.  I made up for it the rest of the weekend though.

I took three classes - Estonian Stitches Cowl with Merike Saarniit, Strick-ly Shawls with Candace Eisner Strick, and The Hole Story with Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton.  Very different teachers, but each very good in their own way.  Learning all the new techniques and getting a chance to meet and have a conversation with the instructors was worth the trip.  Here are samples from the Estonian Stitches and The Hole Story courses:

After eating the lunches that Dennis packed for us, we had time to shop in the Vendor market.  MaryLouise and I also went back to the market on Sunday. I managed to squeeze a lot of yarn in my suitcase even though for the most part I bought only two or three skeins from most of the vendors.  How can you resist yarn when it's presented like this:

 

Freia Fine Handpainted Yarns

Australian cashmere booth



The Buffalo Wool Co. booth



Freia Fine Handpainted Yarns

 

I'll write another post in the next few days to show off some of the yarn I purchased and to give links for the vendors and instructors.  Also, in the "and more stitches" category, I recently acquired some beginning sewing books.  Watch for a review of the sewing books in upcoming posts.