It seems I barely had the chance to recover from all the fun that was Sock Summit before Ginger, Christa, and I hit the road driving to Chicagoland for Stitches Midwest. I’d been two years before, but this was their first time at the event, and Christa’s first ever big yarny event.
We left after work on Thursday and spent the night in Springfield, IL. I was so excited that Smokey Bones, a BBQ restaurant we used to have, had onion rings back on the menu. They had the best onion rings around, and for some crazy reason took them off the menu. Big mistake. Robert and I used to drive out of our way when traveling to eat at any of their restaurants nearby, and when the onion rings left, so did we. So the girls and I had a late night dinner and the pulled pork was ok, but the onion ring recipe had changed. I was so disappointed. So now there’s no reason to go back to Smokey Bones.
Anyway, the next morning we drove on into Chicago and picked up Karen from Midway, and then met Adrienne at her office to park the car. A had to work the rest of the day, so the rest of us took a stroll up Michigan Avenue, and had lunch at the new Chick-fil-A (which is one of the few stores that has their new cookies available). We went back to A’s office where Christa had to get her husband to answer the phone, scan and e-mail her ticket to her so she could reprint it. Oops.
We then headed to A’s home where we had a yummy dinner of shrimp and pasta and showered her with surprise hostess gifts we’d been planning forever.

Since Ginger had just had a birthday, and Karen’s and Christa’s were coming up, we had a few gifts for them as well.



We also had cupcakes, which is becoming a knitterly tradition.

The next morning we were up early to hit the road to Schaumburg. We saw a sample of Tabitha’s Arwen Keyhole Scarf hanging in the Fiber Optic Booth.

We made many, many visits to Miss Babs’ booth.

I met THE Lily Chin.

We met up with new friends from the YOSS group, Dana/klamik and Michelle/Meezercat (who let me go off unsupervised for one more trip back to Miss Babs, LOL).

And at the end of the night, they all joined me for my podcast and surprised me with a gift as well!

As my friend Lu says, this is just wrong – on so many levels.