Stitches East was a huge success from a money spending standpoint although I think my bank account would argue that it was a huge disappointment. I started my spending spree at the Just Our Yarn booth and was delighted to find out that they are local! I picked up a kit to make this awesome necklace thingy and then had a complete panic about an hour later when I realized just how many packages of beads were included in the kit. WHAT was I thinking?! Then we hit the Sanguine Gryphon…oh my goodness! I can’t even begin to explain how incredible their colorways are! If you like rich deep colors, this is the yarn company for you. And they have at least three different sock yarns. I am in love…And as a marketing person, I was impressed with the booth, the costumes that the staff were wearing, the consistent theme, pattern support, professional displays. You name it, they did it and did it well. I an amazing cashmere and silk blend that I plan to make into a lovely scarf type accessory and then the same colorway (what can I say, I was in love) in a sock weight fiber and I might need to get it on needles asap. mmmm….sock yarn
I stumbled upon Miss Babs yarns in the last aisle and it was so exciting that I bought almost a 1000 yards for a quick knit pullover sweater that I am designing. I picked it up in this amazing green color. Can’t wait to start knitting with it.
Then there was my little mishap at the Hunt Valley Cashmere booth. I have already begun to suck some of you into my addiction yarn club with me. So here’s the deal..I’m standing in this booth looking at the most amazing cashmere that I have ever felt. I can’t believe how soft and non pilly the stuff is. Of the knitted samples that she had there, several were many years old and not a single one of them looked any older than a day. No fuzzy, pilling, stretching or pulling. Laura and Aimee and I were sorta drooling over these afghans that they had in pure un dyed cashmere. They were amazing aran squares, all different and beautiful and were part of their Great American Aran Afghan Club. The yarn club goes like this: Your first shipment includes a book of aran square patterns and enough yarn for one of the squares. Every other month they ship you another box of yarn with enough for a different square. You can speed up the shipments or slow them down or cancel anytime. They charge you as you go. The end result is the most amazing thing I have ever felt and I just wanted to steal it and run away to my house, strip down all naked and roll around on it have it in my home to sleep with forever. The official scoop is on this blog post from the company.
So I asked Laura and Aimee, “what do you think about doing this?” By the time the little conversation was over, we had determined that the cost of the medium weight blanket “was only $24 per month” with a shipment coming every other month…and we somehow managed to convince ourselves that it wasn’t “that bad” and that we would meet up monthly to knit our yarn and get our squares done.
Now what we didn’t exactly do a good job of calculating was the following:
1. one square every other month means about two years of squares until we have a blanket. And then there is that cabled border to knit!
2. At a rate of $48 per shipment for the medium weight yarn, we are looking at an $800 to $1,000 blanket when its all said and done. GoodNESS and it will be worth every bit of it…
I also have three hanks of their yarn that I purchased for a hat and wrist warmers in a gorgeous red. You can touch it and try to resist joining the little club… I am planning to meet up to knit our squares on Saturday mornings right before a regular independent study session that I will be putting on the winter schedule. So really, this is a great deal all in all, if you have a twisted mind like I do. So join me!