Sunday at Stitches Midwest 2012

Since we didn't sign up for the fashion show, we had to view the fashions in the market. We decided on class in the afternoon and market in the morning, but have now decided it might have been better to reverse that order. Sunday afternoon is a hard time for class and some vendors put things on sale towards the end of the session.

So as we wended our way through the market for the last time, I tried to keep an eye open for the things we missed at the annual Fashion Show. This shawl was very impressive.

Ruffled skirts seem to have been the in thing this year. There were all manner of ruffles from this red dress with ruffles across the bottom...

to just plain skirts

Of course with a knit skirt, you also need a jacket, so they provided some lovely accompanying jackets too.

 I'm sorry this one is so out of focus. I like the styling very much (but not necessarily the color choices).

Of course black is always au courant and more akin to the kind of thing I would wear personally.

This green piece has wonderful texture

Some of the jackets also picked up the ruffle (or ornament) theme.



Betsy Hershberg's book on bead knitting came out this year, and the market was full of tributes to her work and of course supplies for purchase.



 As far as the grand prize went, neither my sister nor I managed to win it! In fact we came home without a single prize this year either of door or merchant variety.  Here is the winner collecting her cash prize.

After the handing out of the money, it was time to prepare for afternoon class. I ran upstairs to get a diet cola and then we started to work on stranded knitting.  I was TIRED!  This would have been a better class for me if I had had more sleep and energy, but I did manage to get the hang of things. The Course was Stranded Color: Just Beyond the Basics with Beth Whiteside. I think Ms. Whiteside is an excellent teacher. She seemed to be having a hard day and felt she had not made herself clear, but I feel she did just fine.

 

We worked on how and where to hold the yarn when working with two colors and taking care not to get the carried strands too tight.

 There are some lovely patterns that can be made with short carries and we were provided with some patterns and got to look at some  very pretty samples.

Then we got to steek our work. The biggest problem with the class was not having enough time to really produce enough knitting to have a long enough steek and Ms. Whiteside insisted (and rightfully so) that we do the actual cutting in class. (It was apparent that there were those students that were so horrified by the idea of cutting knitting that they would never have performed the act if she hadn't forced us to do so before her eyes.) Here is my cut fabric from both the front

and the back

The crocheting is supposed to help secure the edges and keep things form unraveling. I didn't even have 100% wool yarn and it seems to have worked (although we were warned not to yank on it too hard! (wink!) Here is my finished project with a little bit of edging to try and reduce the curl (didn't work) and make it look a bit larger and more finished.

 And then, unbelievably, it was all over.  The vendors were gone, there was no sign of knitters and not even the place to hand in our conference review sheets was left  to be found. This meant it was time for the ritual goodbye meal. My sister and I seem to have settled on a nice Indian meal at the finish of each conference. This time after perusing several restaurant reviews, we chose a closer place. Our last restaurant had been glorious and stately, but we really wanted to knit so we chose a place near the famed (but unvisited) Woodfield Mall. The restaurant was called Gaylords. I had been to a Gaylord's in the San Francisco area and assumed this was  apart of the chain, although nothing about the place seemed to indicate that this was the case. In fact the exterior looked inauspicious and un-chainlike. The building itself was not even graced by a sign.

The interior however was nice and there seemed to be ample Indian/Bengaladeshi/Pakistani clientele to make us think that the diners might know good Indian food when they were served some, so even though it probably is a chain, it is an establishment with good dining options.

I forgot to take a picture of my meal (which was a sampler of Tandoor meats and some Rogan Josh.) It was all quite delicious.  I did splurge and have dessert - a scrumptious kulfi with pistachios just the way I love it!



Then we went back to the hotel to watch the very strange Olympic closing ceremony.

My sister was blown away by these hats.

and I'm still not sure what the supermodel thing was all about, but it was stunning spectacle.

My favorite part was the giant octopus that unfolded on the stage.



I'm not real clear what that has to do with the Olympics or Great Britain or anything else really. Anyway, we stayed up way too late marveling at the end of the Olympics, but it was a fantastic send-off and we were sorry that our time was at an end.