Monday, March 17, 2014

Stitches...

A few weeks ago I went to Stitches West.  Now for those of you who knit or crochet and don't know what stitches is-where have you been?  For the non-yarny people out there, Stitches West is a convention for knitters and crocheters.  (Going to a convention proves your super nerd status-according to my husband). This was my very first year at Stitches and it definitely will not be my last.

We (three ladies from my knitting group and I) headed up the 5 fwy to Stitches early Thursday morning. Spent a couple of hours crawling through Los Angeles traffic, got a ticket for speeding on the grapevine (the ticket didn't drown out the excitement for the coming weekend) and eventually wound our way into San Jose.

We stopped for lunch at a great spot downtown-Gordon Biersch. We enjoyed our meals so much that we returned for dinner on Saturday night.  GB is a fairly good sized brewery and restaurant.  I split fish n chips for lunch and indulged in a really yummy steak Saturday night.  We saw several other tables of knitters, always great to see what everyone else is working on, while we knitted and waited for our lunch.

Thursday evening the marketplace opened up at 5 and a lot of venders had specials and deals for the early birds.  There were 14 isles of vendors and space for 1400 vendors (although many choose to have more than one booth space).  It was a lot to take in.  There was so much to see and at a certain point I think you stop seeing anything.  Good thing the market was open every day through Sunday.

I don't have pictures to show you.  I just didn't take any.  We played a couple of games in the marketplace- passport and poker.  Both required going to specific venders for something.  Stamps for the passport game and to get playing cards from the poker venders.

Here's a shot of us girls putting together the best poker hands while at dinner Saturday night:


Between the games and trying to keep track of who was selling what and remembering where to go I was too busy having fun to take pictures.

Friday morning I took a class on needle felting and made a little owl toy.  Now, I think he turned out cute.  Mike says he looks like a demon owl.


He's a bit blurry.  For a first attempt, I think he's not bad.

Friday night was also the Pajama Party.  Yes I wore pajamas.  Almost everyone wore their pajamas.  It was held in a room at the hotel adjacent to the Santa Clara Convention center.  We had a DJ, karaoke and snacks.  There apparently is an unwritten law-what happens at the pj party stays at the pj party.  But I have a couple of pictures, snippets really, of the fun.



You'll need to turn your head because I am having camera and computer issues this week.  I rotated the pictures and saved them and the computer keeps flopping them on their side.  

We also went to a fashion show put on by Knitters Magazine.  That was a first for me and a lot of fun.  I felt sorry for one particular model who kept getting the "ugly" outfits.  She was a pro though and didn't look tortured like I would have.  The venders sponsoring the show gave away 33 or 35 prizes during the event.  And the crowd roared when Steve got up to model his sweater (which won the 30 day sweater challenge the month before).

Sunday morning I took a class in steeking.  Steeking for the uninitiated is cutting your knitting.  Which I already knew how to do.  I took the class to learn how to keep my knitting from unraveling after it had been cut.  It was an awesome class.  Best ever.  I'll do a separate post about it later.  I have a ton of pictures to demonstrate.

Before I go back to work I have two last things to show you.  First a shawl-the Zero Kelvin by Lars Rains:



Nifty bumpy bits on the spine of this one drew me in.  I'm not a big shawl wearer (I feel dumpy and old in them typically); but this one I think I will have to knit.

And this really cool bear from Alisha Goes Round:


Now I just have to wait 11 months until it's time for Stitches again.

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