Vogue Knitting Live

There's something about being among your people. Where else but at a knitting convention can you take the only remaining seat at the hotel coffee shop and immediately start chatting with those at the table as if you've all known each other for years? As you can guess, my trip to Vogue Knitting Live was a huge success. After three days of wondering about NYC alone, I was ready for some human interaction and boy, did I get it. I don't know the official attendance numbers but I'd guess a couple thousand knitters and fiber vendors passed through the Marriot Marquis last weekend. It was very exciting

In the lobby, outside one of two marketplace halls, was my favourite display. It's a preview of the upcoming issue with blown up photos and the actual knitted garments. This issue hasn't even hit the stands people!! I've touched the pieces. Examined the seams and hems. Seen the stitches up close. Cool.

Here is a terrible photo of me looking disheveled but happy. Not even when I was a teen could I have fit into this gorgeous yet oh so skinny shift dress. See that laminated card around my neck?. I was so tickled by these conference badges. Each participant got one. On the front is printed your name and home town and on the back is your class and lecture schedule.

At the Neighborhood Fiber Co. booth were many Ann Weaver samples from her current collection Cityscapes. This is District, a very long, but light as air scarf. I loved this booth so much, I bought their yarn!

My friend Natalie Selles' patterns were featured at The Jill Draper Makes Stuff booth. I can see Oh Deer and the Sweetly Worn Shawl in this photo. Way to go Natalie.

This stunning piece is the Seductive Yarns Tunic by Sally Melville. I attended her lecture about using up odd bits of yarn from your stash. Here she has combined three different variegates in alternating rows and presents the garment in reverse stocking stitch. It creates this painted effect that is far more beautiful in person than any photo can portray. I wanted to steal this tunic - just tuck it into my purse. And damn! Sally Melville is funny! She had the room roaring more than once.

Apologies for the fuzzy photo but I had to brag about meeting designer Stephanie Japel. Her class about fitting knits to your measurements was very math filled and I had just had a cocktail so I didn't quite catch all the info...oops.

At the Marriot Marquis hotel bar one pays twenty dollars for two beers. But who cares when the surroundings are so elegant and the bartenders treat you like a lady? I talked with a lovely local woman, knit a sock and watched the glass elevators travel up and down the center of the forty-five floor building. Yes, of course I later rode one unnecessarily all the way up and back down again. Wouldn't you?