Hello, friends! February could never be complete without a trip to Stitches. This year I headed down with a bigger contingency. Usually it's just been Aly and me. This year Steph and my blogless friend Amy joined us, but Aly had to miss it because the poor thing caught a nasty flu and had to stay in bed. We headed out pretty early and were literally the 4th, 5th and 6th people in line waiting to get in. We were on a mission, people! We had maps and lists ready to go. I was shopping for a few others as well, so I had to try to get everything on the list. Major highlights of the trip included meeting a couple bloggers, Cookie (a fellow Thai blogger -- I had to "wai" and say "sawasdee." I couldn't resist) and Cyndi, discovering my new favorite malabrigo colors (pearl and pearl ten -- must find projects to make with these colors) and setting a personal record on how much time we spent there from start to finish (9am-5pm -- it was as if we didn't take the day off to go to work. Aly was also surely surprised when she called me at 3 to see how it was and discovered that we were still there). I know y'all wanna see the haul, but it was honestly pretty uninteresting. My new stash strategy is only to buy yarn that I have intended projects for and that I will start within a few months. I was more prepared to tackle other people's shopping lists than my own. I never had the time to get my own list together so I didn't walk away with much. I really wanted to take advantage of WEBS's $55 deal on bags of Cashsoft Aran and DK, but I couldn't think of anything I wanted to make with it. So lesson learned, if you're going to stash with a plan, go with a plan. So what I did end up with is a bunch of sock yarn I probably don't need. But since I already know what I am going to make with it, it was allowed. I won't bore you with pictures and details of the sock yarn unless you really want to see it. Instead I'll show you the goods from the booth we unintentionally spent a lot of time and where I spent a good amount of money. This woman should never be allowed to return to Stitches (kidding!).