Hedgehog Knitting: YarnCon -- One of These, One of Those

The Incredibly Patient Mother was up for a visit this weekend and very willing to be hauled along to YarnCon, Chicago's indie-dyer event. I missed last year, so this year I was MOST determined to go and see the trends, get a sense of colors, and figure out what yarn I could not live without. The answer to that is quite a lot apparently.

Today, I'm going to describe the individual skeins, unplanned, which followed me home. Here's the preview:

First up, why yes, that would be Watermelon Yarn!! Complete with "seeds"

This is from Brenda and Heather (BaH) Yarns. It's sport weight in the Slice of Summer with an extra skein of Watermelon Rind. In addition to their gradients (which, it's so nice to see not just on fingering weight for those of us looking for the chunkier skein) they also do a short striped skein of the same colors. Pairing these would make it easy to do a sweater! There was an adorable toddler watermelon sweater in their booth. AudioGirl suggests a Hitchhiker shawlette out of this and I'm tempted to agree.

Next was the yarn that several dyers asked me about after I was carrying it around. This was DK yarn from the Miller Girls. It was hidden in the back corner of their booth, but I saw another shopper dive for another skein nearby and it was such a great shade of teal.

It was about 3:30-4 p.m. on the first day and it was obvious that the entire day had been a blur for them. They were also the only the only booth I saw where there was a significant amount of all silk-- both Tussah and Mulberry. So if you're looking 100% silk yarns, The Miller Girls are a good option. This is the Sea Turtle Colorway. It's squishy and lovely and I have no idea what I'll make with it. Accessory season is going to be fantastic this year though.

Now of course, I wasn't going to go to YarnCon without grabbing a skein from Black Cat Fibers. I also follow them on Instagram (dangerous to the checkbook). I'm relatively certain that the skein I bought from them at the last YarnCon I attended is the only skein that has gotten knit up. They are doing fantastic things with black dye and bright colors. Rather obviously, I went for a dark rainbow skein. The colors in this are so intense, it'll make a stunning hat and I'm sure will be much sought after as I knit it.

And finally, I went to Orange Jellyfish Dream. It was her first time to YarnCon and by the time I reached her booth around 4 p.m., the many many crafters before me had obviously been scooping up yarn. The official count I heard was 714 in the first 15 minutes of the festival -- I was rather glad we'd waited until afternoon. OJD is obviously the dyer you want for neon!

This is the yarn I bought--the gray part has a really lovely purple undertone. It should be really interesting to knit up. But to give you a sense of her other stuff-- these were the miniskeins. They were VIBRANT.