Heaven… I’m In Heaven

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.
And I seem to find the happiness I seek,
When I’m wandering around Stitches West.

(OK, so we’ve established that I can’t sing and I can’t make a rhyme. Really, what rhymes with cheek and fits into a cadence of 11 syllables?!)

Having a GREAT time in Santa Clara (nope, not the one near LA, the one near San Francisco ). I arrived late on Friday night. Couldn’t sleep because I was pumped full of Diet Dr. Pepper, so was up until midnight. Got up at 6am because I wanted to be at the Santa Clara Convention Center bright and early to get a good parking spot and scope out the situation. (The truth is I needed to get there early to see if Stitches Market was going to be open as I’d forgotten the bag packed with ALL of my knitting supplies at home! Yes, at home, 300+ miles away. Here I was going to the knitting conference I couldn’t wait to arrive and I forgot my knitting supplies. Not my toiletry bag. Oh no. All my knitting supplies… sigh…)

Luckily, as we all know, knitters are the kindest of people! (Actually, after having spent a chunk of change at the Stitches Market, I was making a final (for the day) purchase and I heard the machine beep. I was like, “Oh shit! AmEx ain’t happy with me!” But then she handed me the receipt to sign. I said, “Oh, I was afraid I was declined. I’ve done a bit of damage today.” And she replied, “We haven’t had a single decline all weekend. Either knitters have really good credit or they’re too kind to try to use a card that isn’t good.”) So anyway, when I mentioned to the only other woman in the room that I’d forgotten my supplies, she told me to come sit down next to her. Yay for Brenda G from Maine!

I had an all-day class with Susan Lazear. Awesome class on interpreting and adapting what you see in fashion trends. She’s a professor of fasion in San Diego and imparted some amazing ideas and information to us. My mind was reeling by the end of the day. She’s also a really snazzy dresser! Although, I guess one would expect that from a professor of fashion, no? My classmates were amazingly kind, generous, and interesting. I sat next to Brenda G, sketch artist extraordinaire:

In front of me was the VERY witty OtherBrenda (who was sitting next to Leane, but I somehow didn’t get a picture of her):

And to my right were the lovely and gracious Alison and Jocelyn:

Another example of knitter kindness: As we were wrapping up for the day, we were talking about our plans for the evening (isn’t THAT in itself amazing? Talking about your plans for the evening with a bunch of strangers you just met?!) A couple of my classmates were going to attend the Stitches Student Banquet, the ticket for which I hadn’t purchased. A woman who was sitting in front of me comes over and gives me her ticket because she was too tired! How sweet was that?!

More later…   (Seeing as I started this on Sunday morning and am really finishing it on Monday afternoon!)