Stitches Midwest Recap: The End

Sunday, Sept. 13 - It was our last day at Stitches, so we spent most of the morning getting ready to go and packing our things into the car. We moved the car to the Convention Center parking lot and headed into the Market for our last-minute browsing and to wait for the results of the final raffle. We didn't win any of the big prizes, but we did squeeze in some final purchases - some in sweater quantities, even! Mmm, some nice squishy Alpaca for me.

We decided to stop for one last lunch in Schaumburg before we left and ended up at the nearby Weber Grill restaurant. After a pretty quick lunch we were on the road and we even followed the original directions to avoid the Chicago traffic this time. The trip home was pretty uneventful and we were home by sometime around 9pm after the time zone change.

Random trip notes:

• We're pretty much convinced that everyone in Schaumburg lives mostly on pretzel rolls and diet Pepsi! The diet Pepsi thing was probably just the convention center making a deal with Pepsi, but the pretzel rolls were at every meal - even at Weber Grill. Don't get me wrong, we had a lot of them and they were tasty, but it was getting a little crazy.
• Remember how we didn't know exactly which direction Ikea was from our hotel? Turns out we could have known if we had really checked out the view from our hotel first. The blue and yellow building is pretty distinctive, but initially we weren't in our room very much and it was quite a bit off to the left so we didn't actually see it until the following day!
  

So there you go - all that you might have wanted to know about our Stitches adventure, and probably more! Now we really need to get to knitting some of our fabulous new yarn. And hopefully the timing will be better next time so that Sariebeth can join in on the fun, since it just wasn't the same without her!

Stitches Midwest Recap: Part 3

Saturday, Sept. 12 - Since we had an afternoon class we got an earlier start and we were back in the Market not long after it opened. I hadn't brought the yarn I needed for our Intro to Entrelac class, but I knew I could find a couple of nice, relatively inexpensive worsted weight yarns - especially since this was the day we planned to hit up the Webs booth and pool our purchases for their discount.

First, though, we were armed with our list of appealing items from the Fashion show and started our shopping by wandering to the various booths to see the samples in person. Some were not as appealing when viewed up close, but we did purchase some patterns along the way.

The bulk of the yarn purchases came later when we made our dedicated foray into the Webs area. We did have a bit of a red tweed thing going on, as both Xandermommy and I picked up sweater quantities in similar, but different yarns there. I got my yarns for class from Webs, too, and Xandermommy found some other yarns of various weights that she wanted to try working with. And, as seemed to be the case every day, time flew while we were shopping and before we knew it it was nearly time for class and we hadn't stopped for lunch yet.

So, we deposited our purchases in our hotel room and headed back down to the lobby with about 20 minutes for lunch. Sam & Harry's was offering a special express lunch for Stitches visitors and we started there, but as soon as we were seated we realized we were cutting it way too close on time and we hurried over to the Starbucks cafe to split a prepackaged salad and a sandwich wrap.

Even though we scarfed our lunch and took some with us as leftovers we were still apparently the last ones to the classroom and settled in just before class began. It was a very quiet and serious class, but within the first 10 minutes or so we were both confident that we understood the concept of Entrelac outlined in the course handouts. It seemed like we both kept up with our swatch work well enough, although after messing up the first part of the bind off row I opted to save the rest of my new yarn and just leave my swatch on the needle for the day. I don't know if either one of us has a project in mind where we might use Entrelac, even after the class, but it was still fun to learn a new technique - especially one that might seem counter-intuitive without the nice diagrams.

After the hurried lunch we were both hungry for dinner and a bit tired of running all over so we decided to return to Sam & Harry's for our expensive dinner out. It was a nice dinner with tasty wine and some fabulous steaks and we were well stuffed by the time we headed back to our room. This was the first night that we managed to return to our hotel room relatively early and we decided it was definitely a night for relaxing and knitting. Nearly an entire movie and a few TV shows later we settled in for our last night in the hotel and our Stitches trip was nearly over.

Stitches Midwest Recap: Part 2

Friday, Sept. 11 - I was enjoying the time off and slept in a bit while Xandermommy got up a little earlier and went down to the Starbucks cafe in the lobby for a bit of breakfast and something to eat. We didn't have anything official on our schedule until the Fashion Show and banquet in the evening, so it was a mostly laid back day.

We stopped by the Market to drop off our tickets for the daily door prize and spent an hour or so wandering the floor again. We made a few more purchases, but we didn't stay long since we were planning to head for Ikea for an inexpensive lunch and some non-knitting browsing.

My Ivy Brambles Sockscene purchase - Autumn Flame

Of course, while we knew we were staying basically across the road from Ikea, we didn't actually know in which direction, so it took a bit of wandering before we spotted the building and wound our way over a highway to it. Ikea never disappoints and we had fun shopping, but since we were already spending so much at Stitches we kept our purchases there pretty small.

Now we also had the ambition of finding some public WiFi access so that we could hop on Ravelry. We wanted to check out some of our favorite patterns for yardage and get some extra info on some yarn before we joined forces to spend more and get a volume discount at the Webs booth. So, when we spotted a Panera we stopped in for an hour or so to surf and make our lists.

By this point we were running out of time before the Fashion Show, but Xandermommy had asked for directions to the nearest pharmacy and we were determined to make a quick stop to get her some meds for her uncooperative sinuses while I visited a nearby ATM to get some additional cash to pay her back for a previous debt (and conveniently increase her Stitches budget!). Although we drove a little further than we intended, we did manage both and made it back barely in time for the show.

But, even though they were closing the doors for the Fashion Show when we got there, they were still just talking about and introducing various people involved with the magazine, authors, and designers, so we didn't exactly feel like we'd missed out on anything. We found a couple of open seats along the side towards the back and settled in with knitting in hand to watch the show. Like all fashion shows, there were plenty of garments that weren't to our taste, but we marked the list for the ones we wanted to check out in more detail on the Market floor and enjoyed the show.


When the show was over and we made our way through the line to the banquet room for dinner, many of the tables were already filling up. Rather than trying to squeeze in somewhere we opted for a table at the back so we could sit facing the podium. It wasn't long before we realized that we were some of the last ones in the room so we actually ended up with a large table to ourselves. The food was good and there were a lot of door prizes and, as she already mentioned, Xandermommy scored one of the gift certificate prizes!


Then we spent the rest of the night in one of the cozy nooks with couches and chairs in the hotel lobby, took advantage of the free WiFi (lobby only, we were told), and got some knitting time before heading up to bed a bit late.

Stitches Midwest Recap: Part 1

Thursday, Sept. 10 - When we signed up for our Stitches Midwest events months ago, we decided that we wanted to be there for the Thursday night Market Preview to take advantage of the shopping time before the market opened to the public. So, we all scheduled time off for both Thursday and Friday and booked the hotel for all three nights. Then, just days before our trip, a series of unexpected events forced a change of plans for Sariebeth and our trio for the trip sadly became a duo.

So, Xandermommy and I arranged to leave in the early afternoon and I made sure to print directions for an alternate route mentioned on the Ravelry forums that would skirt around Chicago and save us the hassle of wading through the O'Hare area traffic. And then we stopped at an oasis along the toll road and switched drivers and I was driving and chatting and Xandermommy was knitting and suddenly we were looking at the Chicago skyline and wondering why we weren't seeing signs for the alternate route and the exit numbers seemed off. Yep, we drove right past our alternate route and ended up sitting in the mob of traffic anyway. Fortunately, traffic was thick but still moving on a Thursday night around rush hour, so although we didn't make it to the convention center right when the Market Preview opened, we did still get there around 5:30pm or so, which left us plenty of time to do some damage to the budget.

one of my Market Preview purchases (Creatively Dyed Yarn - Steele, in Ixia)

one of Xandermommy's Market Preview purchases (Miss Babs - Mulberry Silk, in Iris)

We parked at the convention center and opted to check in to the hotel after the market closed around 8pm. We started our shopping (at the Miss Babs booth first!) and proceeded to spend way more of our budget that first night than we expected and stayed until the last minute when the voice over the speakers announced that the market was closing and we should be leaving. We headed over to the hotel, checked in, called home to say we made it, and headed to the Gather Bar in the lobby for a late dinner. The Gather Bar was bustling with other knitters in various groups, but we managed to snag one of the remaining tables for 2 on the outskirts of the lounge area. We had some knitting time while sipping drinks and waiting on our food from the very busy kitchen, enjoyed our dinner, then headed up to the room to call it a night.

Photo tour of the Hotel & Convention Center here

We were a little worried about just how fast money flew from our fingers on the market floor, but reassured ourselves that we had surely made most of our impulse purchases the first night - after all, the market should look very much the same for the rest of our stay.

Stitches is over, back to real life

Obviously we should have more to say about our adventures at Stitches, but it might take a little time to gather some thoughts and photographic evidence into something coherent. In the meantime, I thought I would mention that I've kept up with my Woolgirl Oz Club knitting so far!

Thanks to knitting time at the Stitches Fashion Show and in the lobby of the hotel while xandermommy got some free WiFi time, I had enough time to wrap up the second Dorothy Gale sock before we even headed for home. I was in a hurry and didn't snap the best of pictures, but at least you get an idea of what they look like.


It's a great pattern to travel with - the repeats are short and easy to keep up with and it's easy to tell what's next based on what you have on the needles. And I'm a sucker for cables.

My next Oz kit is due sometime this month, but the previous kits were late and it seems that Woolgirl has about a million balls in the air right now, so I might not see it until sometime in October. I have more than my fair share of stash to try to burn through in the meantime, but I'm still going to try to keep up with the Oz kits when they do arrive!

You know you're at a knitting convention when...

The centerpieces at a banquet dinner look like this:

And your hotel bed looks like this:

We did take some individual stash photos, too, but haven't set aside time to upload all of them from the hotel just yet. We actually haven't been in our hotel room much so far and have been keeping pretty busy. Guess that's it for tonight -- more details coming later.

Greeting from Stitches Midwest!

Ludistitcher and I are having an awesome time. The Marketplace is all that I had dreamed of and more. I plead the fifth when it comes to how much money I have spent so far. We went to the fashion show tonight, which I really enjoyed. Especially when I won one of the door prizes after dinner-- a $5o gift certificate to one of the Vendor Booths!

Stash pictures will follow-- the light is much better in our hotel room during the day.

Speaking of our hotel room, there is a television in our bathroom mirror. What?!? How unnecessary yet awesome is that?!? Who doesn't want to watch a little David Letterman while drying off from their shower?

Our class is tomorrow. We'll be learning Intro to Entrelac. We miss you, Sariebeth!!!