The Stitches East Report

Back from my long weekend in Baltimore. I have to say that it was an interesting one... between hotel room issues, the Baltimore Marathon (we waited 45 minutes at a light until the race went by. They would not let any traffic thru at all), but we still had a good time. Always great to catch up with knitting friends!

I also have to say that I don't think the convention center/organizers did as nice as a job as last year. There was no coat/package check (which was brilliant last year... and I even heard people say, "oh, I would buy that, but I don't want to lug it around the show"... so note to vendors: insist there is a package check option next year). They also "condenced" the layout this year. One of the things I loved about last year were the wide open walkways. This year the vendors were much closer... only about two people wide... so you had to walk single file if you were with a group. I was clausterphobic the entire time. There was a lot of wasted space to boot, so there was no reason to bunch the vendors up like that.

I didn't buy a lot this year. Partly due to the clausterphobic issue, plus the volume of projects in this house. It was hard to justify yet an other Shelridge Farm kit when I have two sitting here that I haven't even started.

That doesn't mean I didn't buy stuff!!!

Most of my money went to Black Water Abbey Yarns, as expected. I had planned on buying yarn for two projects, and that's exactly what I did... plus one small project.

I knew I would be getting yarn to make Vicki's Cardigan (sorry, BWA uses frames, so that's the best link I can get). Plus the yarn to knit it. I chose the pink heather:

Black Water Abbey in pink heather
I also got enough Bracken to make Matt the Staghorn Cable Vest.

Black Water Abbey in bracken

Plus I got 3 skeins of Sky:
Black Water Abbey in sky
I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with it yet. It will either be a purse (the textured purse from Two Old Bags) or a scarf. We'll see. The color is stunning!

The other yarn I bought was from Brooks Fiber Farm. I got some of the Acero. I'm hoping I have enough to make a little crochet cardigan.

Brooks Fiber Farm's Acero

So let's see... that's 4 more projects. So how many did I finish in that time?
um, none. However, the Newport Cardigan is blocked and ready for seaming, then that huge ribbed neckband:

Newport Cardigan blocking
I'll get that started today. Should only be another day or two before it's finished.

I also worked on the Cindy Must Knit This Cardigan over the weekend, but I had some issues. So I've had to frog back to the same spot twice. Might need a little breather from it, just because that's soooo annoying. I may work on Matt's Sampler Cardigan a bit today (thank goodness for a little cooler weather!).

However, the main priority must be running the sweeper, uh, vacuum. It's been a little while, and the dog hair tumbleweeds are big enough that we could claim them as dependants.