Oh boy. We did it. We gals in the Skein Lane Friday morning group went to Santa Clara to attend Stitches and we

Jan and Sheri, after one bloody mary

survived. Barely. It was wonderful! A few highlights – bloody marys in the hotel bar at noon; bloody marys in the hotel bar at 5; wine in our rooms, dinner at Piatti‘s and more yarn and fun than should be legal for adult women to have without a license. It was great. Here’s my very subjective recap of some of the great things I saw and bought.

Miss Purl

I have a lot of yarn. And I work in a yarn store. So I don’t necessarily go to Stitches to buy, buy, buy. I do go to get inspired. And I go to admire the creative minds of vendors and other knitters. That said, the first place I opened my wallet was a little tiny booth – a half of a booth – taken by “Miss Purl,” a young lady named Danielle Dowhaniuk who makes and sells stitch markers. Now, lots of people make and sell stitch markers. I could make and sell stitch markers. But what separated her from the pack was her packaging – each set came with a tin, coordinating decoupaged tin, many of them decorated with pretty washi and other handmade papers. Some also had pin-up girls from the 1940s on them. They were DARLING. And, you could buy just the tins, which I did – three of

I gave one away

them!

Another half-booth I was very impressed with was Feltz Etc, where designer Carol Galasso was featuring her spectacular knitted and felted bags. Now, again, you can’t swing a 32″ circular needle with a dead cat on the end at Stitches without hitting a felted bag. But these were different. For one thing, they did not look like a knitter raided the bottom of her stash for old bits of sparkly crap that may or may not match. These things had design. They had shape. They had thought behind them. And they were very reasonably priced. The bag I liked best was a heathered teal blue number that came with lining fabric, feet, buckles, etc and was only $50. Carol sells her completed bags and her kits on her Etsy store, which I have linked to above. Go and take a look. She’s also on Ravelry, and her name is FeltzEtc.

Janelle at Snicklefritz

Another place I stopped was Snicklefritz Yarns where designer Janelle Gunther hand dyes her yarns. Again, there is more hand-dyed sock yarn at Stitches than a whole league of knitters chould work through in their lifetimes. But to my eye, there was something special about Janelle’s. Plus I liked that she’s a local gal – she dyes in Pleasanton, Calif., – and she has a set of gnomes she travels with.  This guy in the picture has been to such hots spots as Utah and Norway, Janelle reported. Here’s a picture of the yarn I bought from her in colorway “Diesel Gnome.” It is a blend of merino, bamboo and nylon and is superwash, of couse. I love it. Janelle also has a blog and her Ravelry name is Nannyknits.

my Snicklefritz

Where to next? I must tell you about a wonderful experience I had at Stitches which reinforced my belief that knitters can save the world. Last year, I bought myself a rather expensive set of handmade wooden cocobolo needles from Asciano Fiberarts Tools. I utterly loved them – a size 5 lace-point set of circulars that felt like sex when you knit with them. I am not kidding. I made several things with them – and then broke the needle at the join. I can’t remember what I was trying to do with them at the time – manipulate a bobble? force a slipped stitch over something? But I remember I was really forcing it and when they snapped, I thought, Oh, Kimberly, why did you do that with a wooden needle? Now, Deborah Doyle, the brains and artistry behind Asciano,  guarantees her needles. But I really felt it was my fault they broke. So I wandered into her booth, picked up a pair of the demo needles and began knitting, trying to work out whether I wanted to buy another pair or wait til next year. While I was knitting, a customer came up and asked if I liked them. I said, yes, I liked them – they felt as good as sex. She bought a pair. Another person asked me the same question, similar answer and I think she bought a pair, too. Then Deborah told a customer she was helping to ask me if I liked them because I had said I owned a pair, right? I said, well, sort of right. I did own a pair but I broke them. And I told her I thought it was completely my fault. And do you know what she did? She asked me what size, what tips, and she gave me a new set of needles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People, this is how you run a small business. This is how you make customers for life. I hugged and kissed her, told her I’d blog about her and her fabulous needles, and now I want to tell you all that you should buy these needles. They are the only wooden needles I like (and I way more than like them) and I plan to buy myself a pair every year. AND her needles are made by a small family group in Mexico, so it’s a good thing to do! She also has spindles, crochet hooks and straight needles. Go and check out Asciano – and tell Deborah Kimberly and her size 5s say hello.

Who else did I buy from? OH! I loved the buttons – the kind you pin on, with a slogan, not the kind you use to close a sweater – offered by Laura Lundy of Slipped Stitch Studios. Here are some examples of her work:

“I knit because I am smarter than you.”

“Yes, I am a knitter, No, you may not touch me.”

“Yarn Ho.”

“Yes, I sniff yarn.”

I bought all of those! Laura has an Etsy store, too, so go and buy a couple of these and some cool project bags, which I also admired.

Jan and Sheri and I dropped into BagSmith‘s booth, where we admired their, ahem, bags. I was particularly taken with

Becca Smith of BagSmith!

a travel bag they had – not really for knitting, but you know how you can never find the right purse/travel bag? Well, they had one. I hope you can find it in their online store – it was called The Travellers Bag and sold for $35. It had two separate places for currency – one for your bucks and one for your Euros, or whatever. Wish I had this when I went to Italy. Jan and Sheri each bought another of their knitting bags, beautiful shoulder bags in metallic pink and purple. Lovely – and at $20 the steal of the show! BagSmith is very into big-needle knitting and crochet and we got a private Tunisian crochet demo. Which was very cool because Becca Smith, who is BagSmith, gave us the demo, just as she did on Knitting Daily TV – so we were in the presence of a knitting celebrity! HI BECCA!!!!

And I bought some lovely undyed silk from AffectionKnit, who came from Canada for the show. This was the day

AffectionKnit yarn

before the US-Canada hockey final, and I sad “GO CANADA” as I left as a way of expressing my joy in the Olympics. What can I say? I am an idiot. I plan to use this to make another version of the Lead or Follow scarf I purchased at the Beehive Wool Store when I was in Victoria, B.C. last year. Maybe I just had Canada on the brain. Anyway, Affectionknit had some lovely yarn and they were giving away a free pattern with a purchase of some. I got this really nice “Silky Twizzle Scarf” pattern, which I will use with a different yarn. Nice! Thanks, Canada!

Socks that Rock!

What else? I bought some Socks that Rock  from because, quite frankly, they do. I got a skein of lightweight in the colorway “Grimm’s Willow Wren.” I also ducked into Margit Sage’s Fiber Fiend booth, as I said I would in my previous post, and picked up that lovely Colette pattern. I also bought her Multnomah Falls pattern, which I can’t show you here because it will be mailed to me March 9. But you can go to Fiber Fiend’s online store and check it out – it is listed in the left column. I think it is interesting that I bought 3 patterns at the show and two of them were from Margit. She does good work.

Okay. That’s a long blog entry. I gotta go knit. I will blog later this week about the fun we had.