Stitches Midwest Market

The Philosopher and I traipsed out to Schaumburg for an afternoon at the Stitches Midwest Marketplace. We wandered up and down the aisles, taking in all the wools and sights.

He was fascinated with

• Square needles--to the point he ended up getting a set from the Kollage people. 
• Spinning wheels and drop spindles
• Needle felting (but he didn't want to try it)
• Habu Textiles--especially the stainless steel blend yarns.

I was more focused on a couple of dyers I knew, a couple I didn't, and the one booth that had BMFA....

This was my first encounter with Lisa Souza and I hope it won't be my last. I've been hearing about Lisa Souza yarns since I started listening to Lime and Violet but had only seen an example of her yarns in person once at a friend's house.  Now, here I was, faced with an entire booth of gorgeous yarn! How does one possibly choose?  

Well, one could be sneaky and pay attention to the boyfriend who is tagging along and who picks up a skein and mentions that it's awfully pretty and very soft. One might remember a pattern one has been meaning to knit up for said boyfriend, maybe.... 

Lisa and her husband were minding their booth and they were just lovely to chat with. She has beautiful colors and amazing yarn bases. I would definitely enjoy getting more yarn from her.  

Then there was Fiber Optic's booth. I'd run into Kimber's booth in March and ended up the WendyKnit's Mystery KAL out of a skein of her vibrant wool. I still haven't blocked it, which is why you haven't seen the final product yet.  It's in the "block and gift" pile in the living room. It's gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but I don't wear little scarves...

I restrained myself, I only bought two skeins: 

Aren't they shiny? The bright blue is called Catamaran and the darker is Midnight. In natural bright sunlight, they are difficult to look at they are so vibrant.  I'm REALLY looking forward to knitting these up, though I don't really have a plan for them. I think the Midnight I might do a two skein shawl--do the garter/stockinette plain part in black and then add this on the edge.  The Catamaran might just get put into a vase and called art. 

Finally, in the last aisle, I came across the Fold's booth. Now, I'd heard of the Fold, a shop here in Illinois that I've yet to visit though it doesn't appear to be too far away.  And she had the only BMFA that I spotted in the entire event. She had Raven Clan even--so the Philosopher and I could look at how different bases took the dyes differently and he could it see it in it's yarn state (he's seen the shawl my sister made me).  

While I continued to be enamored of all the Raven Clan, I succumbed only to a skein of BMFA Medium Weight, for I am weak in the face of oooh so squishy socks.  

It's called Coppertree and it's everything I picture in fall: a burnt orange, greens and tones of brown.  It's absolutely lovely.  

While I was there, I did get to try out the Signature Needles that have been the hot item on nearly all of the knitting blogs I read/videocasts and podcasts that I subscribe to at present. I really liked the stiletto tips and the needles are very nice. I'm not sure they'd speed up my knitting that much but I definitely liked them. I was slightly disgruntled by the woman sitting at the booth talking about the needles with customers. She was talking about needle length and how a woman she'd seen earlier in the day had a huge red patch on the pinky side of her palm from where the needle was rubbing her hand. I was mid sock so I did a few stitches, looked down at my hands, did a few more stitches and then mentioned that I was surprised it was on the outside, as my needles hit around the base of my thumb.  The woman watched me knit for about 45 seconds and then said, quasi-apologetically, that I knit weirdly.  I'm sure she didn't mean it insultingly but it seems like there could have been a better way to phrase that.  

I did do some other buying while at the wool fest but it's for other people, so unfortunately I can't share it with you.