Girl on the Rocks » stitches-west | Girl on the Rocks

Stitches West is overload

karrie — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:57:39 +0000

Stitches west proved to be overwhelming as always. Helping out in booths was a great way to prevent me from doing too much shopping. And it allowed me to surround myself with lovely Pigeonroof goodies on Friday, and all kinds of crafty goodies at Urban Fauna on Saturday. I did a miniature loom demo in an area that was not conducive to the audience seeing a tiny loom (and the chairs were bolted together so they couldn’t scooch in). But I think several people were able to ask questions and take a closer look. Several of them ended up getting looms, so I was able to get the work out that tiny looms are rad!

I peeked in on my fiber at the UFS booth, trying its hardest to jump into the hands of passing customers.

While I was helping at the UFS booth, I tried needle felting. Jamie always has a little needle felting demo area set up, and usually I resist. I am not that into making things tangled, but she had these neat-o cookie cutter like forms so you could make shapes (see the center of the photo below), so I gave in.

Photo from maryjanesattic

It was pretty fun! Much funner than anticipated. I am blown away at what a small amount of fiber it takes to embellish something with felt. Spinners, save your scraps and you could make a felter have a stash that will set them for life. I am also impressed that Jamie’s needle felting kits include everything you need to get started – fiber, needles, and a natural foam pad.

I took off on Saturday to do some shopping with friends. I spotted an infamous and highly controversial rolling cart on its own in the wild:

So what did I buy? I already knew that I wanted a Tiger Cascade spindle from Carolina Homespun, so I made that purchase as soon as I arrived. On Friday, I got some CPH buttons from “Buttons!” (*jazz hands*). On Saturday I got two bags (6oz each) of Border Leicester/mohair from Toots LeBlanc. That’s it! Major restraint!

A fiber filled weekend awaits

karrie — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:48:30 +0000

I have been pretty busy lately and Stitches West is to blame. First, I have a project that has been toiling in obscurity for years… My Central Park Hoodie. I haven’t mentioned it here in over a year, and the pattern, project, and yarn all relocated to different unknown locations. I wrangled everything together and started working on it in the evenings, with the hope of wearing it to Stitches West, a mere 2 years after I bought the yarn there. I am one and a half button bands (and some blocking) away from completion.

The next time you see it, I will be wearing it at Stitches.

Thanks to Jamie at Urban Fauna Studio (booth #1036) and Krista from Pigeonroof Studios (booth #637), I am not just a Stitches West shopper, I am a seller! UFS has both my stitch markers and fiber, and Pigeonroof will have my stitch markers. Yay! I am really excited about this and plan to break some rules and snap some camera phone pics of my items on display. I am headed to stitches tomorrow and Saturday and will be helping out in the aforementioned booths so say hi if you see me. Also I will be doing a Hazel Rose loom demo on Saturday at 1 pm in the Demo area so come by if you want to see a little loom in action. I plan to tweet my adventures, so follow me for pics and updates.

Note to self: Go to Target tonight to stock up on “Adult Juice Boxes.”

Stitches West 2007 round up

karrie — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 07:11:33 +0000

Probably my favorite part about stitches is the knitting train. I call the weekly car pool to our knitting night ‘the knitting train,’ but this one is for real.

From previous experience, I have prepared myself to not get any of the free goodies the knitting train promises. They always run out by Emeryville where I get on. This year was no exception. We did get some kind of coupon-y thing that might turn itself into a free gift of some kind, but I am skeptical. (man, do I get irrationally upset about not getting free stuff….) We were able to get our hands on some raffle tickets, and though our group was pretty lucky last year (two or three winners, i can’t remember) I didn’t expect things to go as well as they did….. B won a GRAND PRIZE!! A gigantic tote bag FULL of books and kits. Thanks Chronicle books and Craft: magazine! It was really fantastic… and she was nice enough to share with all of us! I took custody of Cozy Crochet which has mostly basic crochet projects. I’ll pass it on when I have mastered the stuff inside.

On to the stitches marketplace! Prepare yourselves, for I exhibited an incredible amount of restraint.

I know you are thinking ‘this is what restraint looks like?’ Yes. This is restraint. click through for notes.

As planned, I bee-lined to the Blue Moon booth, but there was nothing I could do…. it was so picked over. There was no medium weight (my favorite) to be had, and I didn’t see any colors not represented on the website. So I decided that would be better off just ordering what I wanted online. Now I realize there is very little medium weight on the website. Anyone know what is up with that??

I made a pit stop at the Bay Area Co-Op booth to grab some sock patterns, and then I was off to the Brooks Farm booth. Really, they have the nicest yarns… And I resisted them all! I promised myself no single skeins since I wan tto be able to knit more than a scarf. And i have 1 hank of Brooks Farm from last year, so nothing from there for me.

A stop at the Carolina Homespun booth remided me that Morgaine is a really nice person. With a lot of nice stuff. I got two silk hankies for spinning (inspired by abby’s handwarmers). Somebody else was the real big spender there.

Off to the Webs booth, where i opened the flood gates. I got some Nature Wool that I keep putting in my shopping cart online. It is destined to become a Central Park Hoodie from Knitscene. And the thing that i am the most excited about, some Tofutsies sock yarn. They have 2.5% Chitin from crabs and shrimp! You can bet that when I finish these babies there will be photos of me taunting crabs on the beach with them.

I already started knitting a sock (yarn is double-stranded)

edit
I forgot to tell you about the lisa souza booth. I really enjoyed seeing lisa’s yarns in person. they wer etruly lovely and I chose a yellow and blue handpainted skien for myself. Then i discovered abby rummaging in a bin in fromt of the cash register. It was the “Heels and toes” discount bin. Mini skeins of yarn were priced by the ounce. I got a lovely color collection – maybe fr some striped socks. the two particularly big skeins might become a pair of anemoi mittens.

After the whirlwind of shopping was over, we hit the bar. This year we had stiff competition for seats from both fellow knitters, and families that were there for some sort of dance competition upstairs. But we squeezed in and had a few cocktails. It was there that I found out that Debbie won a door prize. You go girl! We were a lucky crowd.

I thoroughly enjoyed the train ride back. It was complete with cozied beverages for maximum relaxation.

How to shop like a madwoman

karrie — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 08:13:03 +0000

Stitches West 2007 is tomorrow and I am ready. I have a list

Courtesy of the card generator

And a plan of attack

I have a bag full of snacks, which must be consumed in order to make room for yarn. I also have a bunch of buttons, so say “hi” to me if you want one. In case you are wondering what I look like, I am in fact one of the unsuspectingposter girls for the stitch-n-ride. And i will have these pinned to my bag.

maybe I’ll see you for a martini around 5?

I can hear it coming down the tracks

karrie — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 03:14:59 +0000

It is just around the corner – February 22-25…. Stitches West! i am lucky enough to have the location of Stitches just around the corner from me too. It used to be in Downtown Oakland, but a few years ago it moved to the Santa Clara Convention Center. Frankly, I think it might have outgrown the space available in Oakland. It’s that big. Though Santa Clara is a short drive from Berkeley, my friends and I opt for a different form of transportation – the knitting train. Amtrak hosts a special Stitch-n-Ride event where they dedicate one car of the Sacramento to Santa Clara train for knitters. A whole train car full of knitters. And there are prizes and freebies.

As you can imagine, as the word of free yarn spreads like wildfire among knitters, the train was very full. Totally full by the time we got on, in fact. So we had to sit in the next car back, a little isolated. We missed out on a lot of freebies (all gone) but we did win some prizes! (More details in my summary from last year)

So, Amtrak ladies, this year can you please make two cars and give out more free stuff, saving some for the last leg of the journey. It can’t hurt to ask, right?

This year will be my fourth stitches west (and my fourth year as a knit blogger) and I think I am ready to venture out of my shell. Are any of you going to be there? would you like to have a refreshing martini at the bar saturday evening? did everyone quit reading before they got this far? don’t worry i’ll bother you again. I am hoping that someone plans a fun event like the stitches equivalent of Rhinebeck Bingo or something like that.

More Stitches West 2006 Details

karrie — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 00:58:52 +0000

Our adventure started early in the morning. A little earlier than some would have liked, but I am a freak about getting to the airport/train station early. here we are waiting to catch the knitting train at the emeryville station (well not me because someone had to hold the camera…)
note that b and abby are sporting handmade hats, and sarah is wearing a scarf that she knit. As a new knitter, Carmen has only ever made two pot-holder-like squares, so I am kinda glad she wasn’t wearing anything that she knit…. Soon
after this we headed out to the tracks and a zealous knitter announced that the knitting car was already full. I knew it was too much to hope that lisa had saved ~6 seats for the last 2 hours. As the train pulled in, we saw lisa waving to us from the top of the knitting car. indeed it was full. and they were out of goody bags. We walked a ways into the car to find lisa, and man were there some grumps on that car. Lady working on the blue scarf, i am sorry that i bumped into you. That is why I said ‘Oh! Excuse me! I’m sorry.’ You don’t need to make a snit face and roll your eyes. It was clearly a very full area. But on the whole the knitters were a very chatty, friendly group. but we did manage to get one free ball of yarn and some raffle tickets, even though they were out of goody bags. Then we headed farther back in the train and made ourselves at home.

Ingrid inspecting patterns and
carmen eating her needles (note the absence of goody bags on the
table)
Sarah chatting away and Wendy
working on her scarf Somehow those are the only two pictures I took. I guess I was anxious to start knitting. The ride was awesome. We went past the salt flats in the South Bay and got to see snow on top of the “mountains” (weird b/c they are only about 2000 ft and it never snows here). I loved it! The captain (pilot? engineer?) of the train frequently came on the speaker to say that the knitting car was full and in doing so often mentioned “The Knitting Group.” this had the interesting effect of making everyone on the train think that I knew everyone else who was knitting. I just lied and acted like I did. Shopping was a bit of challenge
since my messenger bag made me a little too oversized for many of the booths. I
had to constantly make sure that I wasn’t going to spin around and knock over a
display of glass needles or soemthing. I detailed most of the shopping in the previous post but I did want to also mention
that although i didn’t buy anything from them, but Village Spinning and
Weaving had some amazing hanks of alpaca and cotton that everyone really seemed to like. I am going to keep them in mind for an alpaca ~~sports-bra~~ sweater… Most of us wrapped
up the day at the bar. we felt much more comfortable around each other surrounded by yarn AND drinks.
sorry for the terrible pictures of everyone, but if someone else would take better pics, i would use them So, did you see us there?

Stitches West 2006 is over for me

karrie — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 17:36:35 +0000

First, lets start with shopping. Here is what I got:

Clockwise from the left:

2 Skeins of Socks that Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in colors ‘Carbon Dating’ and ‘Marbles.’ i bought the carbon dating first, and then went back later in the day to get the second skein…. by that time, the selection was dwindling and i got the heavyweight so that i could still have a color that i wanted.
The Denise Needle Companion set is a set of extra extenders, cords and end buttons. I hadn’t yet seen these and i snatched it up. I had been thinking about getting some extra cords, and this set was cheaper than buying a few cords individually.
From Full Thread Ahead two balls of 50% soy silk 50% wool. It says on the label that it is ‘karaoke’ from SWTC , but it was discounted for some reason, and had a full thread ahead ball band on it. I don’t care what the reason is, I am just happy to try out his yarn at a little bit of a discount. I like how tame the balls look from the outside, and how they are full of color on the inside.
oh the goodies that they had at the Brook’s farm booth…. they have GIANT (8oz) skeins of the most beautifully dyed mohair blends…. Soft mohair. i forget who it was, but while i was looking around their racks, someone said “it is nice just to be standing in here,” and it was true. The red and black skein is ‘Duet’ a kid mohair/wool blend 500 yds/ 8 oz. the blue and gold one is ‘Primero’ with 100% kid mohair. They are SO SOFT. And shiny. Gen had said “let’s meet at the Brooks Farm booth because we all want to go there,” and i thought ‘who the heck is that?’ But she was right!
Next, I got a bunch of Jaquard Acid dyes from the Rug and Yarn Hut. (Honestly, dyes were included on my hand-written list even though i forgot to include them on the list I posted here…)
Finally I got a free magnet from V.I.P. Fibers. If you have never heard of them, it is a truly fascinating place and you should check out their link.

Not pictured i did get my Bryspun #4 DPN’s from Carolina Homespun. I had a heck of a time finding someplace without a hug line that had the two sizes of addis that i wanted, so i didn’t get those
yet.
More on the train and other fun in the next post!

The eve of stitches west

karrie — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 05:40:12 +0000

I guess technically Stitches West started on Friday, but because I am not arriving until saturday, tonight is the eve of
stitches west for me. As with last year i will tell you about my shopping list, and we can see how well i
do…

Socks that Rock –
It looks so pretty. and as a geologist, i feel i am entitled to try it out and give a little geology lesson
Addi turbos for socks – i have some, but I need more. Size 3 to be exact.
Bryflex #4 DPN’s – These are by far my favorite DPN’s. The plastic is a little flexible, the needles are the perfect pointiness… i just wonder if in 15 years they we be all brittle like the vintage plastic dpn’s i have.

i
am clearing the memory stick on my camera, so expect a buttload of photos from
the train, and the event.

Some photos and cool links

karrie — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 18:02:54 +0000

Beware… this is a long post
First, here is a photo of my stitches haul. it is mostly bulky misti alpaca. while taking this photo i realized that still cannot believe how light and fluffy this alpaca yarn is. usually i think that alpaca is kinda ropey, but this stuff is great. Second, a photo of my self-striped yarn. i knit some of it up to see how it looks. that part that is knit up is 6 different colors and is 2-ply. we learned how to make the color changes in the 2 plies match. the top of the knit swatch is suppsed to be puffy yarn with thin binder, and the puffy yarn changes color. then still on the bobbin you can see a little bit of the stuff that i navajo-plied. apparently almost every spinner knows how to do this, but it was new to me. you basically finger-crochet your
yarn to turn 1-ply into 3-ply. there is a cool video on it here. i wanted to share the resources i used to make my first toe-up sock, since meg asked, and since they were all free! I was directed to these instructions by
b, since she seems to know what she is doing in the sock department. The casting on is from an old article in knitty. i chose the “easy toe” and it went pretty well. the toe was definitely the toughest part. i wouldn’t want to do it on the commuter train or anything like that – requires too much concentration. but once i was past that i was home free! to make the rest of the sock (especially the heel) i relied on wendy’s toe-up sock pattern. my foot was really a lot smaller than
the pattern, but it was easy to size the sock because i just kept trying it on!

Be sure to read la principessa’s ‘Honest yarn store review.’ i feel like everyone has visited at least one store that fits this review….

And finally, cheryl and i were discussing crafts as art, and i was telling her that using the term “craft”
isn’t cool anymore, according to this radio program i heard. The show is invisible ink , and they had an episode entitled “In Defense of Crafts” that has
a lot of cool knitting content. here is a link to show #63 if you have real player, half an hour and want to listen.

Socks on my feet

karrie — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:58:25 +0000

I finished my socks and wore them around for a whole day.

And i like them!

They were fun to make – there are certainly more socks in my future. I also like the idea of self-striping sock yarn, but i don’t like the white and blue mixed part. I have had my eye on blauband maxi ringel, since that is what B uses that looks oh-so-good. i will be looking or some of that at stitches west this weekend. if i don’t find any,
i might order some from a good-looking webpage i found, Carodan farms.
speaking of stitches,
i have a mental list of what i will
buy….

extra bobbins for my wheel
sock yarn
cheap white fiber and dye
possibly a drop spindle depending on price
one ridiculous item (to be determined)

I am giving myself the option of buying something that i decide i cannot live with out that i am sure i will find when i get there.