Stitches West = SABLE (Stash Aquisition Beyond Life Expectancy)

But hey, I'm done knitting my Simple Knitted Bodice! It definitely needs to be washed and blocked as the double purl ridge hems are wanting to curl right at the transition. I'll post a modeled shot later when I can get Monkey1 to snap a pic.

Dets:
Pattern - Simple Knitted Bodice by Stephanie Japel
needles - size 1 & 7 KP circs
sweater size - a combo of the large & medium size as I have broad shoulders & other curves
mods/comments - short row shaping for the bust, mistakenly forgot 5 rows of the neckline hem, but it does make it match the other hems better, and moved the lace panel on the sleeves down to be approximately the same level as the one on the sweater body.

With the sweater done and my auto insurance deductible reimbursed, I was really ready for Stitches West! So, here's a peek at some of the stuff I bought:

I was a bad enabler and failed to convince tapmouse to hit Stitches West (SW) with me, but she did commission me to buy her Cookie A's pattern & hand-dyed yarn. (This obviously doesn't count towards my haul.)

And I can't buy her any Cookie A stuff w/o buying myself something. I had hit the BMFA booth first so by the time I hit the Bay Area Knitting Co-op booth, there were only 4 skeins of Cookie's hand-dyed left (Louet Gems Pearl base, BTW) and her Twisted Flower sock pattern was sold out 'til 4 pm (but I so could not stay that long!). I appeased myself w/a mostly green w/pink & mauve yarn and 2 of Cookie A's patterns.

And of course, I had to get other yarn (not just sock!) too. So in the pic below (in case I forget to bring it in to show tapmouse), the yarns are -

top: Shelridge Farms Peacock fingerling yarn
left to right: Brooks Farm Yarn Acero (wool, silk, viscose) in 2 different colors slated for shawls or scarves, Lisa Souza's new hardtwist merino yarn in Mardi Gras (though that's not what I picture Mardi Gras colors to be), Mountain Colors Weaver Wool Quarters in Painted Rocks (Wool-Gatherers LLC's sock yarn sale), and Baywood Yarns superwash merino in Aurora Borealis, a local dyer's product sold at Nine Rubies in San Mateo.

And now, most of my BMFA Socks that Rock haul:
Patterns: Cookie A's shawl(ette?) pattern in Bambu and a new STR sock pattern
Left to right all lightweight: Little Bunny Foo Foo, Footzey-Foo, new to me Smokey Blue, Tide Pool (but you can see this on flickr.com & the Rockin' Sock Club blog), and Algae.

BMFA didn't have very much medium weight 'cept in the fair isle sets and in a basket of sock club extra skeins (Pink Granite & Fairgrounds). Kaci told me they were low in stock on their medium weight base yarn. They also had heavyweight, Seduction (mmmm!), Geisha (more mmmmm!), the other fuzzy lace yarn that I forget the name of, the twist yarn and Bambu. I was good and didn't buy any Seduction & Bambu which was hard 'cause they had 2 colors unfamiliar to me (Rock Creek and Dark Horse) that wasn't in the light or heavyweight sock yarns. Sigh. And Spring Fling looked so, so cute in Bambu. But I did manage to stay close enough to my BMFA budgeted amount.

Truth be told, my prep for Stitches West started a wee bit early. Last weekend I headed over to Full Thread Ahead in Los Altos (place of the Bay Area Yarn Harlot signing) after e-mailing Hollis back and forth about her having the Fleece Artist Merino in Seashore. I've been wanting Seashore for awhile, especially when the one I got from an online store looked way more like Hercules. Hollis told me she also had Seashore in the new Sea Wool as well. Well, we didn't find the Seashore in merino, but Hollis was kind enough to sell the Sea Wool to me early and I'm glad she did. When I stopped by their booth today, there was precious little of the Sea Wool left and definitely none of the Seashore. This stuff feels yummy!


So my yarn buying itch has been sufficiently scratched and I will be good for awhile. Mainly 'cause I need to shift my yarn money over in my budget to help a couple family members w/things.

Now off to knit a bunch of swatches so I figure out which slew of socks and things to knit next!