Stitches South

Stitches South - the first one ever - was held this Friday, Saturday and today at the Cobb Galleria outside of Atlanta. I went on Friday with a group of my LYS's knit-night knitters. As we walked into the convention room, those of us who had been to SAFF in Asheville, NC, last fall, said, "Is this it?" We had heard tales of how huge Stitches events were, how great they were, and this was just one room with booths in it.

However, because it contained just yarn and yarn-related accessories (no sheep, alpacas or any other animals, no weavers, only a few spinners), Stitches WAS huge: all of the space was for vendors - hundreds of booths with all sorts of exotic yarns and lots of tools for knitting and crocheting. As we left, eight hours later, we carried bags and bags of new supplies. And if we had been brave enough to deal with what were probably very large crowds yesterday and today, I'm sure we could have come away with more bags and bags and bags....

One of our biggest scores was free - these Ravelry pins. They are scarce, but we accosted a knitter wearing one to find out the source: a nice vendor had bought lots of them from Ravelry and was handing them out to those who knew where to ask.

Unfortunately, one of my purchases was these socks. The group I was with decided that we should all buy them and wear them Thursday night. I remarked that we knit socks; we don't buy them. I was out-voted. I'm wearing them with Birkenstocks. That'll teach 'em...

At one point, I wandered away from the table where we were all taking a break, just sitting and knitting. I found a basket booth, and this basket just jumped out at me.

I bought it and took it back to the table, where, when I glanced at the socks I was working on, I realized WHY the basket had jumped out at me:

And of course, I bought yarn: two different sock yarns, and another yarn (the large hank) that was part of a kit for a feathers and fans pattern wrap. I would like to have bought lots more, but I decided to be realistic about having a large stash of projects ahead of me. I may end up regretting this decision.............but there is always more yarn.....

Stitches has signed the contract to come back next year, and if the dates are better, it may be even larger. One of the vendors told us that next weekend is the very huge Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and that some vendors just couldn't re-stock and organize two events so close together and chose the Maryland event because it is so well known and successful. Sad for us (well, not really), but we managed to have a great time anyway.