Stitches West 2012 -- and a giveaway!

Well, that was fun!  But first, a bit of back story...  About a thousand years ago, when I lived in northern Caifornia, and our company was publishing a knitting book for kids, my friend BB and I learned to knit  by testing instructions for it.  Excited about our new-found hobby, we went to a knitting show that had rolled into town called Stitches West.  Talk about sensory overload!  I remember looking around with my mouth hanging open and whispering to BB, "What's she doing???" She was knitting a sock.  On dpns.  Ha!  We walked around for a bit, bought a bit of stuff that I never used and left. 

Flash forward 10 or so years and we're both pretty obsessed knitters, only now she lives in New Hampshire, and I live in Colorado, and we both knit a whole lotta socks.  Since Stitches fell on my birthday this year, I suggested we meet out there, see all our old friends and do Stitches v.2.  Remarkably, she agreed! 

So last weekend, we met out on the coast and got to see all our old coworkers, and eat our way across the bay area.  It was bliss.  On Thursday night, we headed for the Market Preview, where folks who're signed up for at least one class get exclusive admission to the market vendors before the doors are opened to the public.  We were not alone (but we are in this pic, see if you can spot my red Angostura!)


(photo from the Stitches West Flickr set)

While we were there, we stopped by the Cascade Yarns booth, and since we were both wearing sweaters knit with Cascade, they took our picture and it popped up on their Facebook page today.  Too funny!

 We did some serious damage at all the zillions of vendors, and still made it out in time for a late dinner.  The market preview by itself is worth the price of a class, IMHO.  It was so nice to shop without having to fight big crowds! 

On Friday morning, we showed up bright and early for a class taught by Cookie A, which was also pretty awesome.  We learned all about reading cable charts intuitively, without having to consult the symbol key all the tine.  It was very cool, and Cookie was a fabulous teacher. 

A little more shopping after class, then we spent the rest of the weekend catching up with old friends and squishing our new yarn.  It was, all in all, a fabulous vacation.

Wanna see what I got?  I hope so, because you're gonna have to wade through all of it to get to the giveaway at the end of the post!

First up was 5 skeins of Malabrigo Merino Worsted in the blue graphite colorway.  It's such a pretty dark blue gray, a bit more navy than in this picture.

I found this at the Carolina Homespun booth, where they went waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of their way for me and then gave me a screaming deal on all of it. 

And other than that, the yarn shopping was pretty much all Madtosh all the time for me.  Since I'm pretty much a cheapskate when I buy yarn, and since it was my birthday, I gave myself an unlimited yarn budget for the weekend.  Throwing caution to the wind resulted in this:

It's Tosh Vintage in Mica, which I bought to knit Skelf. 

And also this: 

Tosh sock in Calligraphy.  I bought a skein of this stuff at Loopy Ewe last month, and then decided I really needed enough to make an Austin Hoodie out of it.  That, my friends is a LOT of teensy stitches in a sweater, but I think it will be worth it.

Finally, I got another screaming deal:

2 skeins of Mini Mochi in colorway #307.  Catchy name, no?  Anyway, I love the first Mini Mochi socks I knit, so I decided another pair would be a good idea, especially for half price.

I had to break up all that yarn buying with some books, just for the sake of variety, and so came home with these:

We were even able to get our books signed by Alana Dakos, who was incredibly nice.  I'm dying to knit at least 3 of these sweaters, and all of the patterns are pretty awesome.

And this, because we all know about how much I <3 Ysolda...

I even got an awesome knitting-y birthday present while I was out there.  BB made me the prettiest project bag...

It's even lined!

That's all I bought for me this trip (not too bad since I wasn't on a budget!), but I had to buy a skein for you guys to share a little of the Stitches love!  Here it is:

That's right, more Madeline Tosh.  This is Tosh Merino Light, a fingering weight, in the Dahlia colorway, and here's what you have to do to make it yours:  Leave a comment on this post before 8 am MST on Saturday, March 10.  Easy peasy.  I'll ship it anywhere you are if you're the winner. 

Okay, one more thing:  When I got home, I got to open my birthday present from Mr. Right.  A new camera!  Which takes pretty pictures, including some of the birthday cake he baked me all by himself:

And a gratuitous shot of last night's epic sunset.  Pretty spectacular birthday, all in all!