Fibres West 2012

5 of us piled into my little car and hopped on the ferry to attend Fibres West 2012.

We had to get up really early on Saturday to catch the 7 am ferry, and even though I felt totally scatter brained from my lack of sleep I do have some highlights to share with you...

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I was really excited to meet Fiona and Amanda of Knit Social. They are the driving force behind Knit City, a fibre festival in Vancouver slated to make it's debut October 13 & 14 of this year (thank you ladies for choosing weekend days!!!). Knit City will be the first Vancouver fibre festival (that I am aware of) and boy is it overdue. I can't even imagine how much work is involved in organizing an event like this but after meeting Amanda and Fiona I am positive it will be 100% amazing. It was so refreshing to meet such forward thinking, enthusiastic knitters embracing the benefits of Ravelry and social networking, they have fresh ideas and great energy. They even made the trek to Stitches West to see first hand what makes a fibre festival successful. If you live locally or plan on visiting the area I encourage you to check out their site because they have so much more going on than just this one big event.

Sarah picked up a skein of rainbow sock yarn from Everything Old and I couldn't take my eyes off of it. This yarn was like a rainbow over our heads the entire trip, every time it came out of her shopping bag we all gushed about how vibrant it was. Yum....

The Fraser Valley Knitting Guild was winding yarn again, thank you Holly, which meant Sarah was able to cast on her rainbow socks immediately!

The most luxurious selection of yarns is always at the Valley Yarn booth. Julie has the best taste and I always spend most of my time between her and Sweet Georgia trying to decide how to spend my money. Honestly, it's just one of those booths that is stocked as if you had hand selected each yarn yourself, I only wish I had a bigger budget. I was so tempted by all of the gorgeous Madeline Tosh but I walked away with something that was actually on my list, care to take a guess?

That's right, I found my rainbow skein of Malabrigo Rasta, because one can never have too many Marians, right?

I was so excited to visit the Sweet Georgia booth. Felicia had knit up a gorgeous sample of Georgia in Raspberry! My first year was Fibres West 2010 and so began my obsession with Sweet Georgia Yarns. That year I purchased Tough Love Sock in Cayenne which later became the Georgia Cardigan. At last years event I wore Georgia to show Felicia and picked up Tough Love Sock in Goldmine which later became Audrey as well as one show stopping skein of Cashluxe Fine in Saffron which morphed into many things before it finally became Rae. This year I wore Audrey and picked up one yummy skein of BFL Sock in Deep Olive.

I had hoped to pick up a few options in Tough Love Sock for an idea I'm working on but would you believe that on Friday, someone had purchased Felicia's entire stock of Tough Love Sock. Seeing as I had convinced 4 ladies to jump on a ferry, book a hotel, and spend a weekend in Vancouver, based on the premise that they would have more than enough Tough Love to fondle at the event, I can honestly say I felt like crying :(

{ Shannon made me a business card holder in My colours for the trip! Love it! }

It was so much fun seeing familiar faces, meeting new people, and connecting with online friends in person. I think the highlight of the show for me was just talking to people! And because we had to wake up at 5 am to catch an early boat, I really felt too tired to focus on big yarn buying decisions. I think we all felt that way. A huge shout out to Rebecca Danger and friends, it was so fun to meet up with you, I'm glad you made the trek and let us fondle your yummy yarn purchases! A special shout out to Swelldove and Mum, it was so great to see you both again this year, glad we could share a burger and laughs :)

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Day two was even more fun than day one!

We had a blast running around Vancouver. After a much needed sleep in our awesome 28th floor hotel room with incredible views of the city, we started our day at Sophie's Cosmic Cafe. Because my favorite yarn store wasn't open until noon we headed to Granville Island to wander.

We ended up wandering into this place...

I don't know how this shop is new to me, it was absolutely breathtaking. They stock an enormous selection of dyes and I picked up these gorgeous hand carved stamps for block printing.

I also found a shelf's worth of Tanis Fibre Arts! Score! I picked up an incredible skein of Blue Label in Sunset. It's not a colour I would normally wear but it inspired me and I couldn't leave without it, it screams Spring and Summer, I wish you could see it in person, it's so lovely.

There was also this yarn, which I can honestly say, took my breath away...

We received the most friendly service in Maiwa, it is a very welcoming and inspiring place to be, thank you for having us, we thoroughly enjoyed it!

After Granville Island we made a bee line to...

This was my favorite stop during Yarn Harvest last year. The girls were so impressed with this shop, I'm really glad I could share it with them. Urban Yarns is one of those stores that stocks only the yarns you love and nothing you don't. Honestly, we could have spent all day there, it looked like we were moving in...

Alexa and Kynna were working and made our visit great! Both girls have great energy and were so much fun to talk and laugh with. They even pulled out an enormous stash of Sweet Georgia for us to pick through and wouldn't you know I was able to walk away with a skein of Tough Love after all!

I was also pressured into buying this little lovely (thanks Shan, I have no regrets), this colourway is so coastal I just had add it to my stash...

We recharged our batteries at Starbucks and took inventory of what we had aquired that day, there was some definite yarn hugging going on....

All in all it was an awesome trip with fantastic company, thanks for the laughs ladies!

...can't wait to do it all over again for Knit City :)