Vogue Knitting Live Chicago: Part 1

Last week I received an email from the Madison Knitters Guild saying that there were a few more seats left on the bus going to Chicago for Vogue Knitting Live. What the heck, I figured, it would be fun just to go and see what it's like. So at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, I climbed onto a bus with 50 other knitters and headed south.

First, the event is held in the elegant Palmer House Hotel in downtown Chicago. Everywhere I went in the hotel, there were people knitting! Is this was heaven is like? The fashion shows were fun, although the models were so young and so slim that they would look gorgeous in anything!

The marketplace was much smaller than the one at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival, but the quality was excellent. And the sellers were all really sweet:

Like Lynn at Mia Bella, which is located in Highland Park, a northern suburb of Chicago. She isn't the owner, but she is the namesake of the very cool sock pattern she's holding.  This booth offered amazing patterns that matched their own dyed yarn. (I may have bought something, but that's a story for another post...) A lot of the sellers used that idea of selling yarn with their original patterns. If I am any measure, you'd have to say that this is a smart marketing tactic.

Angela Combest Anderson, the force behind Fleur de Fiber, is another indie dyer in the Windy City. She doesn't have her own store, but you can find her vivid yarn in Windy Knitty (note to self: I need to get back to Chicago to check out this store) and Steven Be in Minneapolis. You can see in the photo that she loves saturated colors:

"I love the interaction of fibers and colors," she said. Currently she is starting with wool that is brown or gray. These yield rich and unique colors when she applies her palette of rich colors. (I may have bought something, but that's a story for another post...)

And I was thrilled to meet Laura Nelkin. Do you know her? I see her knitted jewelry, which combines beads and yarn, at stores and in catalogs, and I've admired it for a long time. It turns out that she designs way more than jewelry; just look at the amazing mitts on the cover of her new book, Knockout Knits:

Can you see the gorgeous rows of beads? (I may have bought this book, but that's a story for another post...)

Laura hails from the Ithica, New York, area. When I found that out, I immediately asked if she ate at the famous Moosewood Restaurant there. "No," she said, "I can make that food at home. It is where visitors always want to go."

Well, this seems like enough for one post. Exactly what did I buy? Tune in again to find out!