My friend Barbara and I went to Stitches East in Hartford on Friday and Saturday and had a fabulous time. Neither of us had classes on the Friday. We scoped out the overwhelming market first. I bought nothing that day but jotted down items that caught my eye which I would return to the next day. I was only able to check out 8 of the 10 aisles of vendors before the market closed that evening, after which we attended the fashion show and dinner. In that order, which I thought was poor planning. It was a good thing Barbara and I had eaten a late lunch before hitting the market as the dinner did not start until nearly 9:00 PM.
Saturday was spent in classes. I went to a 6 hour class on customizing patterns. The instructor was Gwen Bortner of Knitability, and she was an excellent and knowledgeable teacher. Our pre-class homework was to knit a 6" square swatch in the pattern stitch of a pattern you would like to alter in some manner, along with the pattern and schematics. My swatch and pattern for the Bar Code pullover are shown in the previous post. As I suspected, everything boils down to math. In my case, where the pattern is written for only one size and I would end up casting on at least 30 fewer stitches than in the original pattern, Gwen told me it would be easier to 'rewrite' the pattern rather than just plug in the formulas we learned for simpler adjustments. Sigh. I knew I couldn't avoid getting into math. I won't be tackling it any time soon, but will probably make it a summer project.
Back to the market. I finished perusing the remaining two aisles and then made final decisions. I got some fun items, including three funny knitter's pins from the Mannings booth; a Stitches tee shirt (which I wore to work today for Wear Red/Say No to Drugs Day); some pretty flowery pink buttons that kept drawing me back so that I knew I must have them; and a chicken kit!
Also, a kit for a curly brim hat and one for a cool braided wrap, and a skein of pure white super fine Skacel Merino Laceweight for a wedding shawl. My splurge and absolute favorite purchase was the Shona Vest by Jane Slicer-Smith from the Trendsetter Yarn booth. The sample vest took my breath away in its cabley goodness; the Merino VIII yarn really makes them 'sproing'. I tried the sample on on Friday and knew I would make a beeline for it next day. The sample was in what I will call pistachio green, which I was tempted to buy but didn't want to be a complete clone, so I chose an equally delicious curry color.
Our room was only on the 5th floor of the Marriott but it was a nice view.
I'm already planning to attend Stitches 2010, which will also be in Hartford.