stitch 'n ride to stitches west

my friend and i walked from my house to the berkeley (near 4th street) train station. the train was to arrive at 9:22, but it was after 10am before we were on the train. according to the director of the capitol corridor service, there were about 500 stitchers on the train. up by a few hundred from last year! wowzers. we got a bag full of coupons for vendors and various adverts along with the shwag items pictured here. when we arrived at the station, there were several buses waiting to take the stitchers to stitches west, but we weren't able to catch the first run of buses and decided to walk the 10 minute walk to the convention center. the weather was beautiful, so i didn't mind it at all. we did however, take the bus back as we were pretty tired after 3 hours of walking around the market shopping.

as it was my 4th year going, i decided not to buy any yarn. my first stop was to pick up my copy of handknit heroes and to get it signed by stephanie. woot woot!, she was signing away when i arrived at booth #97. i love it stephanie, i'll be signing up for a subscription now too!

i later picked up these hanks/hankys(not sure of the terminology) of unspun silk that can be teased apart and knitted together. i plan on making a lace scarf with it. on the search for an apropriate lace pattern. i purchased them from royale hare. i also got two cocoons that are generally unwound and the threads are then turned into the silk hanks like the ones here, dyed and turned into yarn/woven fabric. a search online brought me to to this site, and now i kind of wish i didn't buy it. :( i guess if i really wanted to be good, i wouldn't even knit at all eh? <>.
at some point in the blur of stitches west, i discovered the beautiful works of marion, jewelsinfiber.com in which the artist, self describes her work as "a blend of fiber techniques and jewelry technology." Check out her site, her stuff is beautiful. i picked up one of her kumuhimo boards to make small lanyards. fancy friendship bracelets. she completely sold out of her kits by saturday, but she sells the supplies and kits on her website too. i thought it would be fun to give it a try.

one of my last stops before popping back on the bus to return to the station was the button lady's stall. she had a wonderful english victorian antique belt for sale. i ended up getting it along with a few shell buttons and a shell belt buckle.