Stitches West 2007 - The Market Preview

I'd been to Stitches last year by paying for Market entrance. This time, I chose a different route - that of enrolling into a class. And guess what - I found out that I'd bought myself entry to a 'preview' of the Market where only registered students and teachers are allowed to shop at a fully-stocked marketplace for 2 full hours. It's worthwhile!

So okie.. I came back equipped with 2 sets of dpns, 2 pairs of addi turbo circulars and a set of cable needles. I browsed gazillion books and was tempted to purchase every single one written by Elizabeth Zimmerman. In the end, I did make one book purchase and that was the Mosaic Knitting one by Barbara W.

I am very keen on owning a colour-stranding pattern book but the choices completely threw me off. Stitchionary has one and with charts too. Should I just go for that or is there a better one out there? I did see some specific to Scandinavia, Andean and generally 'Folk' but like I said, they all left me very confused.

If I'm to buy one Elizabeth Z. book, which would you recommend the most? Almanac seemed very interesting and it's affordable as well. Then there's 'the opinionated knitter' and again, I'm left with confusion.

The upside to all this book hunting is that I got to see many many of the books that I otherwise find only online. 'No sheep for you' did seem to have wearable patterns but I've had enough of knitting with cotton for sometime now. I also leafed through the classic stitch pattern series by Barbara, the socks books by Nancy Bush, the Magical Knitting series by Cat Bordhi, the Interweave press books, Nicky Epstein's curious series of 'knitting the edge'.

The books on Arans/cable-knits did draw me. I do like the concept of introducing twists in the knit fabric using cabling but do not really appreciate the very architectural look of traditional patterns. No offense to anyone but I do think that traditional aran knitwear makes people look older than they are. It would be nice though to have non-geometric patterns using cables. The bunny I knit last is a classic example. There's also the 'Leaves in Relief' pattern at Knitty and an incredibly useful howto on designing trees. Sadly, there's no book that has taken cabling to this level of free-form creativity.

I scouted for affordable options for yarn swift + winder. Why are they so expensive? I've procrastinated this decision - to buy or not - long enough now and a hank of perfectly beautiful yarn is languishing in my stash for want of winding. It's a pity. I just might end up spending a neat 80 dollars on a winding system with swift and winder. Sigh. I can buy a great many books for that value, can't I?

Oh, did I mention - I saw Lily Chin, the author of many a knitting and crochet book. She was there for book-signing and chattering away cheerfully.

In the end, Stitches is an exercise in decision-making, prioritizing, and budget. The attendance never fails to surprise - the sheer strength of female population that congregates is to be seen. 'Twisted Sisters' has consistenly one of the best looking booths and yarn.com (Webs) has the largest collection of yarn. Yarn Barn of Kansas has a fabulous collection of books and needles. The demonstrations with spindles and spinning wheels are always fun. Noro and Koigu are still drooled over.