Spoils of YarnCon

The Philosopher is home in Florida and I'm told that at least one friend there has put in a very hard plea for a pair of socks. I really need to start a wish list, I've got several things that are in the must-be-done sooner rather than later pile but I've not been planning well. With Stash Dash coming up in just a couple of weeks, some forward thinking would not go entirely amiss.

Especially as I've managed to buy more yarn. We had YarnCon in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, it's a great local festival and I got to track down a Twitter knitting buddy. I don't think I'll ever stop being entertained by being able to walk up to someone, say "Hi, I'm *insert handle here*" and pick up with a total in-person stranger where we've left off online the day before.

I only had a couple of hours at YarnCon, the Brunette was in town and he trumps even good yarn. Still, lovelies can be acquired hastily.

I had to, of course, swing by the Sophie's Toes booth. I really only get to see the dyer, Emily Parsons, at YarnCon and I've been doing pretty well at knitting up all of what I purchase between years. I think I have one skein left from previous purchases and it's been cast on, just neglected.



This time I went for one of her six packs, which has 87 yards of each color. She had a lovely shawl hung up in similar colors to this, starting with the darkest and going out to the light--which I thought was an eye-catching choice.



It's fingering weight, but with about 525 yards total, I should be able to make something fairly substantial.

In terms of booths I can never make it past, Fleur de Fiber is also right up there. I just love her Acadian base, it knits up into such excellent well wearing socks. I know some knitters don't like 100% merino socks but I haven't run into too many problems as yet. Now, that said, I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to have to move "regular" fingering weight yarn down to size 0 (2.0mm) dpns from 1.0 (2.25mm) but I'm hoping not just yet. When that happens, KPPPM will have to move to size 00 and then where will I be?

Oh, right, knitting Fleur de Fiber. I got two skeins:



The Jimi colorway and



The Puppet Bike colorway--named for a street performer in the Andersonville neighborhood. She also had a more pastel/baby version of this but I liked the exuberance of this color better.



You'll note everyone's favorite gray tabby wasn't about to let me take photos unsupervised today.

When I mentioned to Shannon Okey from Cooperative Press that I was looking for a couple of new shawl pins, she hauled me over to Balwen's booth.

Just think, I'll always have an inch measure with me.  And I think using cuff links as the pin itself is great! I've not had a chance to try on many shawls yet, I was wearing one of the heavier lace shawls Sibling-the-Elder made me a few years ago and I was a little concerned about it catching but on more garter type shawls....

Finally, I got into The Grinning Gargoyle's booth. This was not easy, it was packed everytime I went past and I only managed to be in a nearly-empty booth for about 30 seconds before other people tromped in after me and we all had to huddle up.

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But for shades like that, can you blame us? I don't knit red all that often and I've no idea what this will be, but it's pretty. And it's MCN, so probably need to do something more of the scarf variety than socks.  Though cashmere on feet is never a bad thing.

None of these have plans yet, so if anyone who knows they are likely to get knitted things for the usual holidays wants to speak up... Otherwise they'll be in the bin until inspiration sparks.