{"id":3059,"date":"2014-02-28T17:27:34","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T01:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/?p=3059"},"modified":"2014-02-28T17:27:34","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T01:27:34","slug":"stitches-west-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ittakesballstoknit.com\/?p=3059","title":{"rendered":"Stitches West Part I …"},"content":{"rendered":"
* some of the names may have been changed to protect the innocent<\/em><\/h5>\n

Wait! What am I saying?? There were no innocents there!! Right Marly??!!<\/p>\n

So as you may have heard, last weekend was Stitches West in Santa Clara, California at the convention center there. I was in attendance. I apologize for just now telling you about it, but I didn’t bring my computer and I stayed a few days after to decompress and check out the host city.<\/p>\n

My impressions on Santa Clara? Nice city (lots of free oranges and lemons everywhere and they even gave me a library card!!) with the friendliest Americans I have met in my travels as yet. Yes, I have lots of other places to go, but so far, they’re the best. And I was able to find my two very good friends Wray and his Nephew on my last evening there. That almost made the entire trip worthwhile!! Actually, I was already over the moon even if I hadn’t bumped into them!<\/p>\n

\"wray<\/a>Here’s my buddy Wray and his nephew. If you don’t know them I’d be more than happy to introduce you sometime! \ud83d\ude09<\/em><\/p>\n

So seriously, this convention had nothing to do with alcohol … hold on, almost. It really was about knitting, mostly. But also crochet, and spinning, and weaving, and dyeing, and lots of other stuff, really, and maybe a bit about alcohol too. I won’t mention any names but there are lots that agree with me. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Anyway, seriously, this is the largest consumer knitting convention in North America. I’ll have to do some research to see where it sits worldwide, but I’m sure it’s in the top 3! There were an estimated 12,000 people that walked through the doors over the 4 days and some even stayed an extra day for Stitches ETC. More about that later. On the first day, Thursday, it was mostly about the classes. There were some 174 classes offered over the weekend by my count, so students needed an early start with 29 of them on the Thursday. For those that wanted an in-depth session with the instructor, there were also 5 ETC classes that were offered on the Sunday and Monday. If you want more information on the classes from West and upcoming classes in other Stitches events, go to their website – STITCHES<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I said Thursday was mostly about about classes, and it was, mostly. For all registered attendees though, there was a market place preview from 5:00 – 8:00. I didn’t count how many people were there, but it was a lot. Here’s a little video I took to give you an idea how many showed up …<\/p>\n