Spring Fling 2010

Warning: The following post over-uses the words awesome, amazing and wonderful… there are also way too many exclamation points and happy faces scattered throughout. Just so you know. 😉

How can I describe the awesome-ness that was Spring Fling? I’m not even sure how to start except to say that it was truly awesome-sauce! Or shall I say awesome-knit? 😀 I loved it so much! I met a ton of great people (I didn’t know a single person there before I went!) who I can now call friends, ate a lot of desserts after every meal (seriously, why can’t we have cake after lunch every day?) and knit a ton while chatting up a storm. The weekend started out amazing with this wonderful goodie bag:

The bag (which is great and I think I will be using it quite a bit) came with a Little Loopy hugging a sample skein of Baby Boom, a stitch marker that says Spring Fling 2010, two patterns (one scarf and one sock), a mug (not pictured – it’s being washed!) and the pièce de resistance, a gorgeous skein of one-of-a-kind-dyed-for-the-Spring-Fling-2010 Wollmeise!

I can’t wait to use this for something – most likely a shawl, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. 😉

The weekend already started off well with all these goodies, but it went from good to great very quickly with meeting all the amazing women attending and making friends with lots and lots of people! Everyone was so nice and there were so many gorgeous knits (mostly shawls!) that just inspired and made you feel like picking up your needles right away – which everyone was doing anyway, even when standing up!

At the front there is Julie (juliee on Rav) who was my swap partner. She’s holding a cake of yarn under her arm in order to knit while standing, LOL. That pretty much sums up how much knitting we all did while there. 😀

My class with Jared Flood was AWESOME! It was on seamless sweater construction and the goal of the class was to be able to walk away from it and know how to knit up a sweater without a pattern. And you know what? I totally think I can do it now! I can’t wait to start on my own seamless sweater. I just have to pick the yarn for it. Jared was a great teacher and made everything so clear and easy to follow. The trip was worth it for that reason alone, but it was even better that it wasn’t by far the only reason that made the trip worth it! 😀 Of course, I had to accost him after the class for him to sign my Made in Brooklyn book:

And I love what he wrote when he signed it!

I even got up the courage to ask him to take a picture with me and he was so nice and agreed! OMG total fan-girl moment! 😀

He was so sweet and talked with me on the way to lunch afterward. I told him I’m starting my business and we talked about photography for a little while. It was wonderful being able to meet one of my knit heroes and to have him turn out to be so nice to boot. 🙂

The weekend was made up literally of knitting and talking to people, both of which I LOVE doing. It was so great to go to a knit event and actually MEET people and sit and talk. I feel like all the knitting events I’ve been to – namely Rhinebeck and Stitches West – were mostly about the classes or the shopping (or both) and not really about meeting anyone else. With the Fling I felt like I was there to make friends and I totally did! I loved having fun with all these ladies – all of you rock!!!

We also found out that Little Loopy was actually quite a scandalous character, getting drunk and falling into socks, peeing into people’s beers and clicking his own love button! What a little rascal!

Of course, the weekend wasn’t all about knitting, talking, classes and meeting awesome knitters… it was also about going out to Loopy Central for some shopping! I think I look quite happy to be there, don’t you? 😉

I love this wall!

And what did I walk away with? A beautiful bag full of goodies!

I think that was a pretty nice haul! Two sweater quantities! One is for a summer sweater – the softest cotton you’ve ever felt… it doesn’t even feel like cotton! – and the other for a Liesl out of an alpaca/merino blend. The rest include Skinny Bugga, Sweet Georgia, Fleece Artist and Hand Maiden. There was also a cute bag from 3AM:

Sadly the time to leave came way too soon, though we all clapped for Sheri and the Elves for doing such an AMAZING job with the whole thing!

I cannot recommend the Spring Fling enough to every knitter out there. It was one of the best knitting-related things I’ve ever done and I’d go back in a heart beat! I’m totally putting my name in the hat for it next year and really really hope I get picked to go – I wouldn’t miss it! 😀

Also, there are lots of blog posts out in blog-land talking about it if you want to look around and see who went. I’m pretty sure that everyone is raving about it, so check it out and see if you want to try for next year (lottery sign ups begin in December)! Sheri, the owner of The Loopy Ewe, posted about Spring Fling in her blog and I’m in some of the pictures – I’m knitting on a shawl in one of them! I’m also dead center in the main group picture – see if you can spot me!

To all my Spring Fling buddies, I had a great time meeting you all!!! 😀