Oops.

Guys. You shouldn't have let me go to Stitches Midwest. That was a bad idea all around. I bought way, way too much. Observe.
Cindy and Heather went with me, and Valerie was there taking classes (all sadly, blogless), but they did nothing to hold me back. At least I got to push off some of my excess yarn-buying frenzy on them.
Before I get to the purchases, the other thing I want to mention was that Franklin was there working on his 1,000 knitters project. He's a photographer, and wants to catalog 1,000 knitters, all working on a scarf. Anyone who lives in the Chicago area should participate, and if you're not lucky enough to live near the Windy City, keep an eye on his blog in case he starts travelling. I sat for a picture wearing my Swallowtail Shawl and chatted with him for a few minutes. He's very nice, and quite buff. Apparently, that ridiculous christening blanket he knit for his neice was not enough - he is now hooked on lace and wants to do an heirloom pattern. Some people.
Okay, first, I had been wanting some of these from Chappy on eBay.
She was actually there with a nice selection of these. She's a very nice lady, and I got to see all the designs at once. I also saved on shipping. That counts for something, right? In retrospect, buying these first may have been a bad idea. They got rather heavy after carrying them around for 6 hours.
No, you don't really need to block socks. I just got tired of taking really weird pictures of my own feet. The socks on my blog (and ravelry) will be much prettier from now on.

Also, I get unduly excited about sock yarn. This knitting thing is out of control, but the socks are rapidly becoming their own problem. I'm also always on the hunt for plain colored sock yarn, so I can do something with exciting stitches. I found this, a new yarn called Aussi. Superwash, 400 yds, etc, all the good things in a sock yarn. I picked it up in purple and red.


Also, there was this sock yarn I had heard about online called Soxx Appeal. Besides just being a funny name, it's 97% wool with 3% elastic. As the owner of the shop put it, it's basically Cascade Fixation but with wool instead of cotton. Nice. I can't wait to try this. (Also, it's not this blurry IRL.)


I thought I was done with sock yarn after this, but then I found some amazing deals. Jimmy Bean's Wool was having all sorts of ridiculous half off sales, including some very eye-catching Regia.

And something more subdued in very Sarah colors of red, black, grey and white.

I mean, Regia doesn't break the bank to begin with, an then it's half off? I can't resist.
But okay, this time, I was really done with sock yarn. Seriously. Done.
And then there was a bag of 10 (!) for 75% off - it was only $25, and enough for 5 pairs of socks.

So, uh, yeah. I kind of wound up with 10 more skeins. I'm only actually going to use two, so if you want to swap or something, let me know. That's why I didn't feel too bad about buying all the extra skeins. I know so many other knitters.
Part of the fun of the Stitches extravaganza was the Victorian Lace Today fashion show. If you thought the book was pretty (and it is), you should see everything in it knit up and modeled in front of you. It's just amazing. So, I'm inspired to want to knit some lace that I have at home, for one thing, particularly the quiviuk I picked up in DC. I think I know which VLT pattern I'm going to do after seeing it in person. There was also a small shawl knit out of Malabrigo laceweight, so I had to pick up a couple little skeins of it.

I adore Malabrigo in general, and I only recently heard that a laceweight existed. I'd been eyeing this colorway in worsted, so I was more than happy to get it in lace. Although...how many red shawls does one girl need? Aparently at least 3, because I've done one, and I have the wonderful yarn for two more. At least it's my favorite color, and the one I'm mostly likely to pick for a formal dress.
I also picked up some needles, but those don't make for very exciting pictures. I had heard really good things about the Hiya Hiya circulars, so I picked up two in size 1 for socks. They were half the price of Addi's, so we'll see how I like them. I got some highlighting tape for lace charts, too. Also, a couple of places were giving out free bags. Score.
I met Jordana Paige and ogled her bags, which are fantastic, but I realized I couldn't buy one of those and all the yarn I wanted. (I couldn't even buy all the yarn I wanted.) I guess I'll stick with the free bags.

Okay, I know what you're thinking, that wasn't so bad. Maybe I have a problem with socks, and slightly unrealistic expectations for what I can knit in one lifetime, but how much money could I really have spent?
Uh, at least enough for an entire bag of Jaeger silk. In my defense, it was half off. Also, Jaeger is going out of business, so this silk that I pet in the shop all the time is about to be no more. So...I bought enough for what I think will be a very pretty little cardigan.

Yeah. That was the last several nails in the coffin.
So how much did I spend? All in all, approximately 12,000 Indian Rupees. I don't want to look at it in US dollars. That's not as bad as it sounds, but the silk alone was 5,000 rupees. I wanted the Sweater Wizard software really bad, especially after playing with it, but I was beyond cut off at that point. Someday. Maybe around a certain day in October. Like the 8th, or thereabouts.
Also, we are on the cusp of football season here. Don't expect to hear from me at all on Sunday, and not too much on Saturday, Monday, and sometimes Thursday either. Maybe I'll actually have a chance at knitting what I've bought.