Snaps from STITCHES West, 2008:

Working at the Ravelry booth, I got to meet so many new people. The weekend is an amazing blur... I'm so happy to have met... so many people!  The Ravelry users who came by the booth were so friendly, and the crowds of people who had not yet heard of Ravelry were so kind and interested in the site - it was a blast to sign people up; I kept telling new users, "I hope you don't like to spend a lot of time outdoors."  I think they thought I was joking, too. 

I looked up midway through... one of the days - Saturday?  And the name badge in front of me read: Catherine Lowe.  I sort of gaped for a second, just long enough that I'm sure she thought I was choking perhaps, or something else was wrong with me, and then I managed to gush some praise in her general direction - it was an interview with Catherine Lowe, in a back issue of Interweave Knits that I picked up at Yarn Expressions on my cotillion trip to Huntsville, Alabama back in  2005, that made me think much more critically about the finishing work and specific details I put into my design work.  It was an inspiring interview in many ways, and she was very kind about my incoherent fan-ish ramblings when I attempted to tell her as much.  I got to see - and try on - and inspect the flawlessly bound seams of - her knitting at her booth later at the event - and I was amazed.  It is impeccable work, in a way that I want to work toward.  A lovely experience, meeting her.

 I came home with just a few new fibery items - I hadn't planned on buying anything, really (no, really! I was there to work!) but the beautiful yarns above fell into my hands. First, there was a limited number of malabrigo sock yarn (the minty hank in the top right) for "beta testing" straight from the malabrigo booth, for Ravelers from the malabrigo junkies group.  It is stunning and so incredibly soft - and I happen to have empty sock needles right now.  The chocolate fiber, and the steely brown, gleaming yarn in the middle picture - buffalo gold!  The fiber is 1 oz of pure buffalo. I am itching to spin it - I need to ply some yarn off my spindle, first.  The yarn is 75% bamboo and 25% bison down, and it has the most elegant sheen - I have a million ideas running through my mind to swatch. I'm really grateful for all these fiber gifts!  They do make great souvenirs* - I know that when I knit and work with the fiber, I will remember the whirlwind of a weekend fondly.

*Adding in laughter, as an afterthought before publishing: spell-check just shocked the heck out of me with the correct spelling of this word.  I'm generally a good speller - but I was way off.  Honestly I'm looking at the word right now and it looks completely wrong to me!  But evidently... I'm nuts.