While I was waiting in line (having somehow forgotten about the existence of printing tickets out from teh interwebs) I saw Amy, aka Sputnik on Ravelry, and we did the market together, providing enablement for each other.
Although I heard that the market was some 40 vendors lighter this year, it was still the same physical size. Evidently, many people took bigger booths. There was certainly no feeling of anything other than overabundance again.
I didn't take any photos, or really think of any kind of narrative for our shopping, so I'll cut to the chase of what I was compelled enough to buy.
k2tog has a great selection of Crystal Palace yarns, including two new ones. Mini Mochi is a self-striping sock yarn that is very soft.
I bought eight balls; I have an idea for a skirt design. They also have a new weight of Panda Silk. It is just a luscious yarn.
I bought a bag, and I don't care that they're both green. Then I wandered around for quite a while, thinking that I was done with the spending. But the JoJoland booth had some cashmere on sale.
It's on sale because they made a bad choice for the string that holds the tag on, and the color ran on the yarn. I'm planning to dye my four skeins with Easter egg dye.
In between all of this, I saw several people from my knitting group, who all told me that Fae was looking for me, having very kindly brought a kitchen scale for me to borrow to weigh my unhappy yarn. She finally caught up with me, after having schlepped the scale all over the Santa Clara Convention Center. Thank you again, Fae!
She showed us a pompom yarn that she had bought at the Great Yarns! booth, and I wondered if she were going to make a bathmat, too. But she said that there was a sample knitted of the yarn that lined up the pompoms and looked really cool. I couldn't picture what she meant until I saw it for myself. When I came back to the market with my daughter yesterday, I bought her a skein for a scarf, which I knit up today.
If you click through, you can see there are eight stitches on the needle, two between each pompom. When I was puzzling over what to do with my previous pompom yarn, I got stuck (both literally and figuratively) on pulling the pompoms through loops, whether knit or crochet. But this technique keeps the pompoms in between the stitches, kind of like beads, so you're only knitting the cord in between. It took me about an hour to make the scarf. Do I get a prize for finishing a project bought at Stitches while Stitches is still going on?
I really love how the pompoms line up. I seldom feel the need to make the same thing for everyone I know, but I'm already thinking of several more people to make this for. The yarn was about $10, so it's quite a big effect for the price and effort.
While we were at the Great Yarns! booth on Friday, Amy confessed that all of the novelty yarn was starting to look good to her. I told her she needed to go outside and get some air. But then I bought a skein of a ruffling yarn.
I like this one better than the previous incarnations of ruffling yarns I've seen because it's a woven, rather than knit ribbon. The ruffles come our softer, I think. I'm imagining it as cuffs and a jabot collar for a vintage inspired sweater.
I bought some buttons, too, of course. Who could resist this octopus?
Yesterday, as I said, I went back with my daughter and spent an hour with her Auntie Karen, who's teaching at Stitches. I hope we'll have a chance to spend some more time together later this week.
