2016 Stitches West - Part One, Thursday & Friday

I have newfound respect and admiration for vendors with large booths to set up at Stitches.  It took Laura, Desiree, and me four hours to set up the Dizzy Blonde Studios booth on Thursday.

Looked great, though!

What do I spy on the left-hand side of the booth?  Why, it's Fangirl!

Thursday night's Market Preview was my initial "scope everything out" time, though I was so tired still from booth set-up that I didn't have the energy to do my usual methodical combing over every booth.

Friday started out great; I had been hoping to score one of the "window seat" rooms at the Hilton this year, and I did.

As one would expect, things got a little silly in the booth that day.

Doing my best Vanna White impression.

Ready to beam down to the surface,
scared even though we're not red shirts.

Some Lux Adorna Knits  (formerly known as Pepperberry Knits) 100% cashmere came home with me so that I can rework my Defarge Does Sherlock design in a currently-available yarn.  (We miss you, Cephalod Yarns!)

After school, Thing Two hitched a ride down with my friend T and joined me.  Per Abby's request, dinner was quite fancy:

Can you guess which burger is mine?

After a little downtime (I may have napped), we put on our pajamas and headed over to the convention center for Marly's pajama party.

Abby was envious of Nathania's
Fair Isle Doctor Who onesie.

This year's associated charity was Knitted Knockers, so every table was given a pile of flat knockers and fiberfill to use to stuff them.  Afterwards, we played a rousing game of "hot potato" with the boobs ("because boobs are hot").  As much silly fun as we had with it, it was great to help such a worthy cause.  The goal was to collect 1,000 knitted knockers over the four days of Stitches, but on Sunday it was announced that over 1,500 were collected - half again as many.  Knitters, you are a wonderful, generous people.

As usual, thanks to the sponsors and vendors, there were prizes galore.

The highlight of the night, though, was the "Lip Sync Battle" (that wasn't really a battle; everyone who participated got a prize).  Steve Malcolm of It Takes Balls to Knit stole the show with a hilarious performance of "Uptown Funk".  (Yes, I DID get his permission to mention it, LOL.) I wish I could show you pictures, but "What happens at the pajama party stays at the pajama party."

Abby declared the whole thing "quite an experience."  Thank you, Marly, for another terrific event.

One more thing...

Can't knit or didn't get to knit a pair of knockers for the cause?  Knitted Knockers is auctioning off on eBay an assortment knockers made by various of the knitterati to raise funds.  Check it out; some of them are hilarious!