Stitches East!

Weatherly Mize’s shawl pin. Goes with every color.

Kate and Deb, who laughed with me for ages at Stitches East, with the YSO occasionally dropping in the conversation when she had a moment because it was just too much fun not to. We were having a good time. They surprised me with these gorgeous socks, which they’d made together.

Amy, with her black baby alpaca shawl in the yarn from Karin in Albany.

Robin, who used to live in sight of my street here, before I came here, and then moved close enough to the neighborhood I grew up in that when I named the street she asked which house.

Afton described a dinner after the first night of Stitches, where eight women were discussing the menu with the waitress. One told her, “No dairy” (which I can thoroughly relate to–I have a daughter who gets violently ill if she eats anything that so much as touched anything made from milk.) The waitress didn’t get it, and asked what No Dairy meant. Instantly, all eight women at that table spontaneously declared in unison, “MOOOoooooooOO.” I wish I’d been there! Afton surprised me with this wool tam. I confess I have Mary Rowe’s “Knitted Tams” book and never gotten past the dream stage with it; Afton totally scooped me, and I love blues and greens together.

Colorjoy LynnH in her one-off Peace shawl, with the yoke done a little differently from how it is in the book; I like to doodle in my knitting. Granted, LynnH is the last person you’d expect to see wearing something so plain, but since I didn’t know what color would be best, I decided she would have great fun painting it, and she said she would indeed. Lynn, I’m listening to Brian’s Music Box Rag album as I type. Once I learn the pieces I can kazoo along with your husband. (Kazoo made by Lynn.)

Lisa Souza adjusting a Bigfoot shawl from “Wrapped in Comfort” in her Jellybeanz colorway at her booth at Stitches East, and my haul of Lisa yarn.

Sheila Ernst and her friend (Lisa’s, too) Jackie in the background. Sheila makes the most incredible handblown glass shawl pins, glass buttons, glass knitting needles, you name it. The picture doesn’t begin to do it justice, but it goes so well with my airplane knitting–which is the yarn Laura in Alameda dyed and surprised me with at TKGA. I’m almost done knitting it up, and I can’t wait to wear them together.

I was quite thoroughly spoiled by my friends on this trip in far more ways than these pictures could convey, and I am so glad I got to go!

(Edited to add: WordPress is balking, and some pictures are being hidden beneath others.)