I’ve been getting quite a few “what’d you get at Stitches” questions and comments.
I think the fact that it took me a week and a half to post about it is a great indicator of what I thought.
It was….eh.
The market is definitely going through a low period. Quite a few good vendors were missing this year, and even with the new ones they were still one or two rows short of last year’s event.
They were so desperate that they let in this “As Seen on TV” dude selling hand-held steamers. He took up at least 4 booths. It looked so out of place with his flashy booth and rolling rack full of clothing to be steamed to perfection. I have no idea how he did, but on Friday his booth was pretty empty every time I walked by.
Did you know that Stitches East is moving? Rumor is it’s because the Atlantic City location is driving out a lot of the smaller vendors. It’ll be in Baltimore next year (in November) and I’m hoping that will help “fix” it. I’ve also heard Stitches West is not suffering from this same problem. I’m seriously considering flying out for a weekend and attending Stitches West. It’s in mid-February so it’s well before MDSW. It’s in a nice part of CA so I really wouldn’t mind the trip. And anyway — who would complain about a trip for some more yarn buying?
So…here’s what I got.
Two hanks of Hand Jive Nature’s Palette fingering weight for a pair of luscious socks. The is really soft yarn, and I love the speckly coloration. All Hand Jive yarn is dyed with natural dyes. My colorway is called Odd Duck — and the speckles do sorta look like a duck. I love how tightly spun this yarn is. It really reminds me of Koigu.
Two hanks of Shelridge Farms Soft Touch Ultra in purple — probably for socks. I tried to pick out solids or near-solids so I could do more patterning in my socks. I have tons of sock yarn but almost all of it is self-patterning or so variegated that it wouldn’t look good with texture. While I was at it I forced myself to pick a color I normally wouldn’t choose.
Two colors of Louet Gems Pearl (fingering weight) for the stranded sock I wrote about a couple days ago.
Two hanks of Just Our Yarn’s Caravan — 65% wool 35% camel down. They had some finished samples that were washed and the camel bloomed and softened and gave a halo similar to a fine mohair. Really really lovely.
And that’s it! I tried to stick with smaller vendors or (in the case of the Louet Pearl) something I couldn’t find locally. Can you believe I went to the Tess booth at least 4 times and couldn’t find anything I wanted? Her sock yarn selection was limited and I just didn’t see anything else that jumped out at me.
I did find one other yarn that intrigued me — Green Mountain Spinnery’s Green. It’s 60% wool and 40% mohair. Unwashed it felt rather rough but the baby sweater they had on display was sumptuous — velvety and silky and wonderful. But I couldn’t think of a project that I’d like to make out of it and I didn’t want to buy a random amount of hanks just to drop into the stash.
Even though I did rag on SE in the beginning of the post, I am really happy with the yarns I got. They’re yarns I would have had a hard time getting close to home, and I probably picked out a couple things I wouldn’t have considered buying otherwise.
Guess what? Now that I bought all this new yarn I went and started a project this weekend with stash yarn. I’ll show pics of that in my next post…
Yeah yeah I’m such a tease!
I was glad to hear they are moving to Baltimore. I was trying to figure out the easiest and cheapest way to get to Stitches this year and I couldn’t find either. Baltimore will be much more accessable. Though California in February sounds enticing…
every time i see a post as such “i got these from such as such festival” i am just so envious… your yarns are gorgeous! i need to get myself to one of those gathering soon, but how much money do yuo reckon i should saved up first? ha!!
i was wondering how it was!
baltimore sounds like a better location. i’d be up for that but it always seems to compete with the nyc race for the cure weekend.
LOVE the Hand Jive!
I heard that when Stitches moves to Baltimore, the price for a booth is going to go up, which very well may drive even more smaller vendors out of the show.
I think buying new stuff always guilts me back to using stash yarn, at least briefly. Gorgeous haul you have there!
Hi, just a lurker reading blogs this morning. Re: your comment about Stitches West, you should try to spend the weekend out here in California in Feb. Stitches will be at the Santa Clara convention center which is a few miles from San Jose Airport. There’s also alot of new yarn stores opening up around the Bay Area so they all may have booths set up at stitches.
Sounds like an okay time afterall…while not a lot of yarn purchased–it all looks good to me. I think my mom just got some of that Hand Jive.
I am happy that they are moving down to Baltimore–of course, that is much closer for me–but I guess it is a little further for you. I look forward to attending next year.
You got some really lovely stuff, Jody!
great haul! it looks like you did pick up some lovely things.
i can’t wait to see what creations come flying off your needles in the future.
Stitches West was so much fun this last year – I’m hoping for the same next year. I’m hoping a few of us will be traveling from Southern California for it!
Nice yarn! But it does seem like a bit of a shame to fight through the yarn-maddened crowds for only (“only” — haha) that.
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