Ravelry Party

In what I hope is a firmly established, on-going tradition, the Ventura contingent headed south to Burbank yesterday for the 2nd annual Ravelry Party at Unwind. Stephanie and company threw a great bash, complete with food, cake, raffle prizes and yarn discounts. We got to talk to Ravelry's Jess and Casey, saw Mary-Heather from a distance (top photo; she was constantly surrounded by a crowd), got reacquainted with local knit designer Fickleknitter (aka Michelle Miller. I love her shawl patterns) who I met last year while working the Spinning and Weaving Association's TNNA* booth,

My friends have learned to hide from the camera. Sad, huh?

and got to check out the brand new yarn and pattern offerings from Classic Elite Yarn, one of the party's sponsors. I, um, fell off the yarn wagon again; I special ordered a gorgeous knit sweater pattern (this one) and enough yarn - in a brand new, 2011 colorway - to complete it.

The party officially started at 6:30, but Melinda, Edie and I were on our way at 2:30 (can you tell we were a bit excited? Rav peeps! Yarn! Portos food!!) so we'd have time for a quick stop at Pearl's Knitting Parlor in Thousand Oaks. Even though we were on our way to another yarn store, we each came away with a big bag of yarn - at 50 to 75% off, how could we resist?? The orange wool and silk blend? $2.54 each. I got a sweater's worth of yarn for $23. The smaller purple skeins of cotton and acrylic? .94 each. Whoohoo! (The bigger purple yarn? Bison, cashmere and bamboo lace-weight. $25 sale price; only 50% off. But hey, it's BISON.)

*TNNA = The National Needlearts Association, the trade organization for yarn shop owners, teachers, designers, book publishers and more. It's where most yarn shop owners go to order what we'll all be buying in the next six months. The show is a very big deal in the yarn world.