Monday 1 September 2008

You did.....WHAT???

ME: I've been invited to go to Chicago for STITCHES MIDWEST and stay at a complete stranger's house.

General response: WHAT??? Are you crazy? You don't know anything about this person. This person could be a serial killer. Your children need their mother.

Complete Stranger: I've met someone on the Internet and invited her to come to STITCHES and stay at our house .

General response: WHAT??? You did what??? You don't know anything about this person. She could be a crazy homicidal maniac.


You get the picture. From both camps we had people looking for ways to lock us up for our own protection for clearly we had lost it and gone loopy with this hair brained plan.

Funny thing is, the only person who didn't say anything about this plan was my DH. He may have thought it, but did not say word regarding the state of my sanity.


Thursday the 21st, the sock and I headed off to Chicago for our latest adventure. Kathy met me at the airport and we headed off to her place for lunch. On our way we told each other of the secret plots to have us committed because of the plan.


Kathy( after lunch
): Look, all kinds of knives lying around and no one got stabbed.

A STITCHES event.

It's hard to describe. Maybe this is the place that good knitters go when they die. Aisle after aisle of yarn, needles, books and knitting gadgets, it was enough to make even the hardest hearted knitter cry. There was even an underlying scent of vinegar from all the hand dyed skeins. More than once Kathy caught me smelling skeins of wool.

I did my best to purchase only the yarns that are not locally available. However when you find Noro Transitions at 1/3 of the price you can get it locally, you just have to go for it.


I did take classes, one on the Estonian Patent stitch with Merike Saarniit and math for knitters with Edie Eckman. Both very informative and both very useful. I can't wait to impress everyone in the near future.

The sock was overwhelmed by the whole thing and was very emotional when I told it where we were going and who we would see. I was able to calm the sock down by starting to knit the heel. The sock did okay and managed not to embarrass me despite being severely star struck.



Merike Saarniit, queen of the Estonian Patent Stitch.



Edie Eckman, simplifying math for knitter's everywhere.

Stay tuned for more from my Chicago adventure.

Until next time
Yours in Yarn,
The Fibreholic

5 comments:

Nancy said...

Well, all I can say is, you better never finish this sock, or quickly start another traveling sock. What a fun entry this is. Can you have YOUR picture taken, face and all, holding this sock?
Nancy

MadMad said...

Hellloooooo? Where's a picture of Kathy? I didn't realize you guys didn't know each other before! Good for you, though! Isn't it funny how close you can feel to someone you just met over the internet? It's always the knitters, though... ;)

Kathy said...

And the best part was all the knitter we told the story to said, "That's great!" They obviously get us in a way that the muggles don't!

Denise said...

Ooooh wow *faints*

Georgie said...

I am jealous beyond words...what a fabulous event! And *of course* its cool to go stay with someone you know from online - just because you've never "met" IRL, muggles think youre crazy...I guess thats why theyre muggles!!

Oh, and dont forget to flash the new stash!