KITH me, I'm awake

Knitting in the Heartland wrapped up Sunday night, and I'm just now returning to the land of the living. I've got a lot of housework catching up to do (not to mention knitting catching up to do), but at least my living room no longer looks like this:

Stefanie teaching "Fitted Knits Techniques"
in her ravelry T-shirt
Originally uploaded by tjstein

It was a ton of fun hanging out with Stefanie, and I heard good things from the people taking her classes. She is more beautiful than her photos, she is smart, she is hilarious, and she is a class act all around. I wish she could have stayed longer and taken the Grand Kansas City Yarn Shop Tour, but, alas, it was not to be. Fortunately, Amber stays open late on Friday nights, AND she's down the street from Blue Koi, so we got to drop in on our way to Crispy Tofu with Awesome Sauce.


Everybody who's in the guild is going to get tired of me chanting these names, but I don't care. They deserve to be remembered in song: Sandra, Holly, Christine, Jo. While Teri and I were stumbling around sleep-deprived and walking into walls, these ladies were taking care of business. If you're going to head up a committee, the supposed ideal situation is to have people who, when you say "jump," they say, "how high?" On the contrary, these ladies, when we said "jump," they said "Yeah, lamebrain, I just set a pole vault record while you had your thumb in your eye." They were unbelievable - including Christine, who is getting married in two weeks. Who gets involved in planning a knitting conference two weeks before her wedding? A rock star, that's who.


Also... Teri? The woman is a machine. We met at 8 a.m. Friday and did not stop until late Sunday night. Picking up stuff (and people), running errands, making phone calls, going to the airport during rush hour -- and she still found time to do Mom Stuff like attend parent-teacher conferences while I was home muttering to my very slow printer and rocking back and forth over my sixth cup of coffee.

Needless to say... my job? Other than stashing stuff in my living room, driving people crazy by pelting them with checklists, and going to Kinko's at 2 a.m.? Easy peasy. Everybody else was amazing.

The conference itself was fantastic. It's so exciting to me to see other people geeked out about knitting, so of course KITH was a blast. The market was full of beautiful stuff, people were whipping out projects left right and center, and I heard all kinds of conversational buzz about learning new techniques. Stefanie's publisher generously sent us 50 copies of "Fitted Knits" to give away for classes and the book signing, which was just awesome. Nobody else scrimped on the freebies, either - we had to have extra door prize drawings because our donors were so generous -- and if you've heard a rumor that you won a prize that you weren't around to claim, don't worry. We have a list, we have your contact information, and we will track you down and give you your goodies (much as I might like to keep them).



Also, I got to team-teach a class with The Other Jo, which was an adrenalin rush and a learning experience. I'd definitely do that again!! (It was also encouraging that when Teri and I dropped by the morning guild meeting to stash some stuff back in the cabinet, two people waved their finished class projects at me! Yay!)


We also got to meet The Most Well-Dressed Baby in the Universe, AND we know now why Stefanie is so sweet and so much fun - it's genetic. Stefanie's mom and in-laws took turns Mazie-wrangling and they were all lovely people.


We really have a fantastic knitting geek scene in Kansas City and I feel so fortunate to be part of it. I was just as excited to introduce Stefanie to all the local knitters and yarn pushersvendors we have here as I was to introduce Stefanie to them. I honestly kept forgetting that she was just here for the weekend, and, as you can see, we drove her back bearing all the marks of someone who has moved into our treehouse for keeps:

(Yes, that's a MisKnits T-shirt, Happy Feet from MisKnits, a circ from The Studio, and the first sock she says she's knit in 5 years. On her lap is one of Carmen's sock bags, which have become a ubiquitous sock knitting accessory in KC. The moral of the story? Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated. Even if you're a Best of Interweave Readers' Choice Nominee.