Sunday, February 19, 2006
Stitches West 2006
Nothing prepared me for the sheer density of STUFF that would be on display and for sale at the Stitches West expo this weekend. Oh.Ma.Gawd. There's no getting around it.
I went nuts.
Treasure upon treasure of a knitter's dream. I was nearly swooning. I felt like I was 6-years old again and it was my birthday and my Grandma had taken me to the Kaboodle that used to be on East Napa Street and was crammed full of high-dollar toys and stuffed animals and she had just told me, "Pick anything. You can have whatever you want." I remember that shivery tingle up my neck and into the roots of my curly hair. Standing there, 3 or 4 feet tall, looking up into her face, that red lipstick and bouffant hair, rosy cheeks and smile, silhouetted against the shelves of toys. No one had ever said to me, "Pick anything. You can have whatever you want." That's how I felt yesterday. It was my grown-up version of the Kaboodle, 2 convention halls full of dreaminess. The cashmere, the Qiviut, the Alpaca, the Merino, the Angora, the fingerling, the roving...oh Lord, it's making me swoony again just thinking about it.
[SIDENOTE: to any male who happens to be reading this, you may want to just skip this post at this point. My husband informed me that hearing about yarn was probably to him the same as a female listening to him talk about his fishing tackle...touché. However, I still think yarn and fiber are way more interesting than fishing tackle...]
I want to quit my job and become a fiber artiste. I want to knit and spin wool and weave and and and... ::sigh:: It's always the same. There are so many things I want to do and absolutely no time to do it all.
I bought scads of yarn. My stash is now growing out of its corner on my side of the bedroom. I keep trying to beat it back, but it's hopeless. But the yarns at the Expo were so delectable and begged me to bring them home with me. Literally, they were mewling at me from the tables and bins, their big, luminescent eyes just staring at me. It was hopeless. No one could have won out against all those orphaned skeins of yarn. No one. Really. It's true. I promise.
I also bought handcrafted glass buttons, a hairpin lace tool, a weavette tool, glass needles, patterns, and so many different kinds of yarns I am still in a virtual swoon. I'd be embarrassed except I was on cloud 9. I didn't know I was such a true knitterly nerd. I really didn't. But I was so excited to go to that Expo. I was racing there in my parent's mini-van, 4 passengers in the back seats holding on for dear life as I careened around corners through yellow lights, wove through traffic on the 680, and got to the convention center in record time. We got there at about noon, the Expo Market closed at 6:00, and they were literally turning off lights as the 5 of us dragged ourselves out the doors. My sister (the non-knitter) was the smart one who brought a rolling trolley. The sucker was packed by the time we left, and we didn't even look stupid with it because all the other crazed Market-goers had their trolleys in tow.
I will never be the same. I have seen paradise and it is the Stitches Market.
| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 9:35 AM
