Stitches South

Did you think you were in the wrong place for a minute? :) Some of the changes that are/were being made to the blog actually got made a little ahead of schedule. My tech guy was free last night and he had the new logo all ready to go so we went ahead and changed the layout. My goal is to have everything fully updated by this weekend. By Saturday you should be able to link to this page through the Vivid Creation Fibers website and I should have a new updater thingy (that is the technical term for it I think) that will make posting to Twitter easier for me. The shop also got a new layout and the updated logo. More changes will be made by Saturday over there as well. And on Saturday I plan to launch my new names! I decided that I did want to change my Twitter and Ravelry names. As Kay pointed out in the comments, the Knifty Knitter is actually a loom knitting device (something I've never actually used in fact) and, while the name is catchy, it isn't unique. I'll be changing both user names to VCFibers. I think it's short, it's easy to share with people, it's easy to remember, and it connects me to my shop/company. Remember that on Saturday I will also be opening the Blog Relaunch Contest. You'll have to check back then to get the details of how to participate. Alright, on to Stitches South!

Day 1:
I took the day off work on Friday to go to Stitches South. I didn't take any classes this year (because up until a month ago I was planning on being a vendor, that, obviously, fell through) so I just went to explore the market. I'm one of those people who has to see everything there is before I can start to make decisions about what I really want. One thing I had to have was a picture of me with the entire Ravelry crew.

They were having a meet up in the concession area and I was waiting for a friend to come look over some samples for a custom order. It was like meeting celebrities. In the sense that it made me hot and sweaty to be near them and I was suddenly struck speechless. Which was pretty much how I felt when a few minutes later I went to meet Rachael (a.k.a. Yarn-a-go-go) and get her to sign a copy of her book, How to Knit a Love Song.

Thankfully Rachael is very nice and seems unfazed by the nervous, sweaty fan girl types. Plus she actually flagged someone down to take this illegal picture of us. And she took my business card. Which is nice because I'm practically a no body and she still seemed genuinely interested in meeting me. I went home and read the first 5 chapters of her book that very same night.

There was only one yarn purchase made on Friday.

A skein of Little Traveller in Springwater Isle from the Sanguine Gryphon. I love these colors and she always has such nice yarn. Plus I knew that it might be snatched up by Saturday.

Day 2:
When I came back to the market on Saturday I had calculated just what I needed to get and where I needed to get it from. I'd gone home and thought about what I wanted to purchase and had restocked the cash supply. The main thing I wanted was some Valley Yarns Amhurst in shades of green from WEBS.

I think I spent 45 minutes at the WEBS booth trying to calculate how much yarn I was buying, how much it would cost, and how much more I would need to buy to get the 20% discount. Turns out, not much more.

4 skeins of Northhampton

A skein of Colrain (50% wool, 50% tencel)

And a bottle of lavender Eucalan. The green yarns will become some sort of color work boys sweater. I think the Northhampton will become a hat or 2 and the Colrain I'm going to try and dye to see how the tencel takes color. The Eucalan I got because I'm forever in need of a no rinse soaking soap.

However, one of the coolest things I got on Saturday was something I paid exactly zero dollars for.

I was wandering the market killing time before I had to meet up with some Rare Purls friends for lunch and my friend Albert forwarded me a message from Kimberly, one of the Stitches South coordinators and someone I follow on Twitter. She was having a giveaway. All I had to do was find her and answer a simple question. Funny thing was, I had passed her twice in the last 15 minutes so I knew exactly what she was wearing. I had to hunt for about 10 minutes but I finally ran into her. Turns out she had taken a picture of a booth and I had to tell her which booth it was. I pulled up the picture on my phone and immediately recognized it as the Socks That Rock! sign from the WEBS booth. My prize?

This gorgeous yarn bowl from the Knit Witch. Very cool.

The rest of Saturday was spent meeting up with friends and looking at yarns. It was a rainy and yucky day but it ended up being a great one. I can't wait until 2011 when I can do it all again!