Overcome by Yarn Fumes (SW-2011)

Stitches West 2011 was this past weekend. I completely transformed from a disciplined monogamous knitter to a crazed all over the place knitter and shopper without an ounce of self control. I'm going to use the same excuse that the Yarn Harlot made up and blame my bad behavior on the yarn fumes. I am going to get this embarrassing moment out of the way and show the photo of my shopping haul. There's cashmere lace weight yarn, Danish color merging yarn, a buttload of sock skeins, and some super saturated spinning fibers, plus some fancy sundries (including the elusive Addi Turbo 00's). It should keep me busy for awhile. I am so in love with my haul.

There. Now that the haul is out in the open, I can now blog about my adventure. I arrived in Santa Clara on Thursday and stayed at the Hyatt at the convention center. My roomates for the weekend are my friends Stephanie aka Woolydaisy and Rhodi. They come from the foothills of the Sierras and belong to a very fun and active fiber arts guild. When they arrived, they asked their fellow guild member Luci to celtic braid their hair. Check out their 'Fraggle Chic' do's.

Here is a closer view of the back, so you can see how intricate the braids are.

There were lots of fun people high on the fumes in the lounge area and Stitches market place. And they are hardcore. One 'dirty knitter' showed me her ink. That is a serious commitment.

This group of animal heads were promoting their patterns. They gave me their business card and gladly posed. I am partial to the giraffe head.

Ali MacGraw of Love Story fame was there promoting sales of a hat kit. The proceeds of the purchase goes to some animal rescue organization. She is not a knitter, but she graciously offered up her celebrity status to a cause. She was a good sport.

I took a dye class with Cheryl Potter. It was a wearable art class in which you end up with a beret. I got some good info, but not all of the technical info that I was hoping for. Cheryl may have been holding back on me. Fun class though.

Stephanie was completely taken by surprise when she got out of her class and found out that she had one a door prize for a skein of hand dyed yarn by the Sanguine Gryphon. We made her do the 'Publisher's Clearinghouse' prize pose. Almost as fun as holding a giant check!

My roomates took off Saturday afternoon. And bright and early Sunday, I had my never ending day of flying. I did manage to sit next to a woman with the wildest handbag. It is made of sparkly red car upholstery vinyl or maybe like on the banana seat of a stingray bicycle. The lining had leopard print. I couldn't help myself and asked her permission to photograph it.

The bottom has bullet feet and car seat quilting.

By the way, she was a proud granny. How cool was she!?!

Great weekend.