Thank you all for your patience, everyone!  Camera, light, and yarn finally came together, and here we have it: my spoils from the Knitting in the Heartland vendor hall.  I tried to be really, really practical and look at everything twice before pulling out my credit card.  I did look at everything twice, but…I may have purchased more than originally intended.

First up, fiber:

I have yet to take a deep breath and sit down with my wheel since I stumbled through Jacey Boggs Faulkner’s drafting class at the convention, but I wanted to stock up in advance of a wave of inspiration, so all those should do the trick.

Choosing just a few yarns was really, really hard.  Stone Soup Fibers had clutches of mini hanks that I really, really wanted, but I still haven’t knitted up the Stone Soup sock yarn I bought from my first trip to the Yarn Barn a year ago so I went for yarns from two new-to-me dyers, Treasure Goddess and Nerd Girl Yarns.

Last, but definitely not least, I sought out the Studio Knitting and Needlepoint on the recommendation of a friend, and found this pretty skein:

If my math is right, that one massive skein is enough for a Waterlily top.

One of the many things I love about working with materials from small producers is getting to meet the people behind the yarn.  Each and every vendor at Knitting in the Heartland reinforced this: I chatted with the ladies of Topeka Twister about Turkish spindles and shopping strategies.  Christine of Treasure Goddess had sound gauge advice, and every single person manning the Nerd Girl booth had a suggestion to help this semisolid-to-solid color knitter wrap her head around the idea of working with super bright colors.

Just photographing all these yarns has me itching to start new projects.  Maybe next post…