I’m back from Stitches Midwest and a little bereft, missing Jo and Meg after a fun weekend together, surrounded by knitters as far as the eye could see. I thought I’d share a few scenes. Above is my favorite thing that came home with me — two bundles of handspun tassar silk from Habu. It’s like pliable twigs, and I can’t wait to try weaving with it.

Meg’s cardigan was a huge hit, prompting countless inquiries and lots of petting. It’s Amy Swenson’s Watershed cardigan pattern, and was knitted by Jo in Tosh DK. (It was perfectly adorable on Meg, but I was trying to figure out if I could do it with sleeves and straight edges for myself.)

I was surprised and happy to see some Sincere Sheep wool hanging in the Carolina Homespun booth. Even more surprised when we walked around the rack and found Brooke Sinnes herself sitting there, knitting away on a shawl like she always seems to be. Meg bought enough fingering-weight merino to knit the Walpole cardigan, in a color which is hilariously called Kung Hey Fat Choi. I wonder if she’ll have it done in time for the parade.

A seriously gorgeous blue table runner, woven by a demonstrator whose name I failed to write down.

Part of my stitch sampler from my Advanced Tunisian Crochet class. We did lots of beautiful stitches, but I was mostly stunned to learn of Tunisian Knit Stitch, which you can see above looks exactly like stockinette (but so fast to do).

I wanted to bring home these bundled hanks of Manos del Uruguay — all of them — and just put them in my living room as decoration. So beautiful. I had to settle for two skeins of that brilliant kelly green you can just see on the left edge of the photo.

And it was a pleasure to meet Sarah Dimond and her sister, of The Plucky Knitter. They won my best dressed award, for sure. Sarah has great color sense, and her multicolored cowl looked amazing with her navy schoolboy blazer, jeans, and sandals.

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