Stitches Midwest

Again this year, my husband and I drove to Illinois to visit friends and for me to attend Stitches Midwest Market. Since it was just one big shopping extravaganza, there is not much to show or tell about except for my purchases. This year I went on a Saturday and it seemed there were more book signings and demonstrations than I remembered from last year. Pictures were not supposed to be taken in Market, so I can't show you the knitters' paradise.

The picture above shows the patterns I bought- Hum...6 patterns and 5 are shawls. The shawls and shawl yarn just seemed to draw all of my attention.

Below are the "extras" I bought. I needed highlighter tape, so picked some of that up. The Fix A Stitch is a crochet hook gadget designed to make picking up stitches in garter stitch easier www.fixastitch.com. I haven't tried it yet. The silver "thingy" is a clasp for the bag pattern in the top picture.

I have all sorts of knitting bags, but I needed these! The knitting chickens fabric is what attracted me to the left bag. The construction is nothing special, but the price was right. I use my large Nantucket bag all the time, so thought this little one might be handy, too.

On to yarn. The Filisilk is manufactured in Germany and apparently is new in this country. This is lace weight and 70% merino extrafine and 30% silk.



This is from a company I'd never heard about-Just Our Yarn, produced in the USA www.justouryarn.com. Most of their yarn was lace weight  tencel and was sold in kits with a shawl pattern, but they did have the yarn available without being kitted. This one is 100% tencel. The shawls they had on display made from tencel had such a nice drape.

Another blue! This is Lisa Souza yarn 55% silk and 45% cashmere fingering. Romi had a picture of a small detail of her next Muse shawl and it was in a similar color. Maybe that is what this yarn will grow up to be.

This is Miss Babs, www.missbabs.com. Hand dyed sock yarn 100% merino wool. I got to meet Miss Babs which is always fun.

It was fun to meet Roxanne from Zen Garden www.zenyarngarden.com in person. I had communicated with her once when I had run out of her yarn in a project and she sent another skein very fast especially coming from Canada. I belong to her Light and Dark Shawl club and just received the first shipment of that. The purply yarn is Serenity 20, color Gladiolus and is 70% Superwash Merino, 20% Cashmere and 10% Nylon. The blue one is Serenity Lace II, 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere and 10% Nylon color Navy Teal.

The last one is madelinetosh, Tosh Lace. I'm using Madelinetosh in a sweater on the needles and it is a wonderful yarn. The yarn is so consistently dyed even between skeins there is no difference as there often is with hand dyed yarn. www.madelinetosh.com. This is 100% Superwash Merino.