Vogue Knitting Live Loot

Still dreaming about Vogue Knitting Live? Me too. I had a really awesome time this year at my second VKL. I accomplished all of my goals and I wasn’t completely overwhelmed like last year. Of course, I realized that I hardly took any photos while I was there. I was a little focused on shopping (oops).

I met up with Maria of Subway Knits (her amazing VKL post is under that link. She took awesome photos!) and she invited me to the podcaster meet up where I spent some time sharing the haul with Kim, Steph, Sharon, and Dana. It was great to meet some other New York knitters. I hope to get together with them again for the Long Island Fleece and Fiber Fair!

Let’s talk about the yarn, though, shall we? That’s what you’re here for.

My first stop was at Long Island Livestock. After falling in love with the yarns and adorable alpaca faces that come with them, I had to stop by their booth. (Last year I bought this salve that I put on my lips and cuticles every night. It’s delicious.) This year, I got to chat with Tabitha before things got busy and she told me about the fiber fair. (If any of you in the city are interested in going, they’ve organized a bus from Manhattan and Brooklyn!) I can’t wait to visit her farm. They are lovely people!

I discovered North Light Fibers from Block Island. Their yarns were all really wonderful. I could only afford to buy these two skeins but they’re definitely destined to become a sock. I guess I’ll work them two at a time so I don’t run out of yarn! That orange/brown/cream colorway reminds me of hiking (not that that’s something that I do…hiking around Brooklyn, I guess). It’ll be a really fun way to bring an outdoorsy hunter vibe to the city.

Dropped by to say hello at the Kollabora booth. It was full of people! So great to see. I bought my mom a skein of purple Donegal merino tweed because it’s purple (her favorite color) and from Ireland. (I gave it to her the day after so I didn’t have a chance to take any photos. I can’t wait to see what she makes, though!)

I chatted for a while with Jill Draper. (It was one of the many times during the day when I said “It’s nice to finally meet you in person!”) Her yarns are so cool and she is really sweet. Her booth was twice the size since last year. I couldn’t help myself from picking up this awesome superwash merino. Even her friend who was manning the booth grabbed it from me and drooled.

I don’t think these photos do justice to how fantastic the colors are in here. The pink is really bright and almost fluorescent but perfectly balanced with the other colors. I don’t usually go for variegated yarns but this one was calling me. I can’t wait to buy more of Jill’s yarn. (I was really enjoying the woolier yarns but when I’m buying single skeins – as I do at these things – I like to buy something that could at least be turned into a sock. Socks are my go to when I have a few hundred yards to work with!)

After debating for a while, I also picked up one of these awesome Japanese pattern books. I can’t read Japanese and the charts look intimidating but just looking at the patterns is fun. I really love just every single one of the patterns in those books. Kudos to the ladies at the Kinkokuniya booth for explaining to every other person that the books are not in English, sorry!

The day was exhausting but so much fun. It was great to know my way around a little better and have proper ideas of what I wanted to accomplish and who I wanted to visit. Most of all, meeting so many people (in real life) was so great. I’m all over Twitter and this blog, chatting it up but I don’t really belong to any stitch and bitch groups (yet) and hanging out with some really cool knitters made me realize that that is something I’d like to get into this year. I’m just going to surround myself with you wonderful knitters because I just don’t have enough right now!

Did you go to Vogue Knitting Live? What was your favorite part?

Related Posts :

Nora Meets Me!

Michelle Collar Make-a-long!

Summer Knitting

A Pattern by KYC: Fingerless Heart Mitts