Stitches West

So I've evidently fallen off the face of the earth for the past month. There's a good explanation: the Stitches West convention.

I work with Miss Babs throughout the year, knitting samples and trying to think up new things. Because she's in Tennessee and I'm in California, though, I now only work one or two shows a year with her (yes, I love to work shows. They stick me on the cash register and I get to smile at everybody). Stitches West is the big one! And lucky for me it's just down the street.

I spent most of February knitting up two big sample sweaters for the booth. First off was a Simple Cardigan in Yowza. The color here is called Blackwatch. It's a size or two bigger than I need, so I'm not the best model for it. I found an excellent shiny shell button at Green Planet Yarn for it.
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Simple Cardigan

The other sweater, which became famous in my regular Thursday night knitting group for 'feeling like kittens' was Jaina, featured on the cover of the recent Twist Collective. This is in Tierno, a very lovely alpaca-silk blend, and the color is Forever. Soft, snuggly, warm... a very nice sweater (but boy, it was a lot of uninterrupted stockinette stitch for me!) Sorry for the headless shot but I was very sleepy when the photos were taken.
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Jaina

I also sewed a new apron similar to the one I had made for Sock Summit and then passed on to one of my co-workers.

Setup in the booth went faster than ever this year due to really good planning (not by me). We had lots of yarn and kept very busy all weekend! After a day and a half of setup, 4 days of sales, and the frenzy of teardown and pack out, I spent Monday on the couch under a blanket to recover. I may have even started a new knitting project that's just for me.
SW 2012 booth
A view of part of the booth before we opened for business

I didn't have much time to walk through the show floor and was very, very restrained in the yarn I took home. I did get one lovely skein of Penny Farthing Sock from Little Red Bicycle (the color is Deirdre) and couldn't resist this skein of Miss Babs Northumbria fingering in a not-to-be-repeated color called Deep Sea Jellyfish. Not that I know what I'm going to do with either of them, but they're gorgeous and will make something beautiful. (And can you believe it - I didn't buy anything green?!)

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Little Red Bicycle Penny Farthing Sock in Deirdre

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Miss Babs Northumbria fingering in Deep Sea Jellyfish
Did you make it to Stitches? Get anything fun? Or if you're not local... are you planning to go to a yarn/fiber show near you soon?

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