felt club xl summer event!

Can you find me in the crowd??? Lol. I actually don't think I was in the shot when this was taken but who knows. Yesterday was my first Felt Club and despite the apparently huge crowd that showed up, I will definitely be back for more! My fiancé and I got to the place early because the first 250 people got a swag bag. We got there at about 10am (the doors were set to open at 11am) and there was already a line!! It didn't look like there were 200 people in front of us though. Thank goodness. We made it home with not one but two bags. Once home, my fiancé said, "I love swag bags." So now it's my job to find more events we can attend that gives out swag bags. :) Our swag bags (I really should've taken a pic of the contents before I went through my bag but oh well. Inside our bags were a bunch of samples from a number of different vendors-mostly buttons! There was a free can of Izze who I'm guessing helped sponsor the event because that was definitely the beverage of choice @ the XL Summer Event. I can't even remember how many my fiancé and I had actually drank or how many cans we took home with us!! Also in the bag was this weird book about a cat, a free copy of the most recent issue of CRAFT, a free copy of the most recent issue of adorn, and the best part of all (the real reason we needed to get a swag bag) a free copy of Speed Knitting! A free knitting book that I don't already have, who could ask for anything more?? I have two copies of the book so be on the lookout for a real contest here. And when I say real, I mean one that actually happens-not one that I talk about happening and then don't follow through with it! :P
Now, to be honest, I didn't think there'd be much knitting-related stuff @ the event. But I got lucky. I broke my yarn diet (only because I couldn't have my fiancé spend all of his money on me there!!) Here's what we picked up.. Here's a skein of a merino/bamboo blend sock yarn. Here's a merino wool sock yarn for my fiancé. Hopefully it's enough yardage..I guess we'll just have to see. Both skeins come from mary jane's attic. She's got another site but it's down right now. I finally managed to find a dpn holder (in person!!) that I like! It comes from Textile Fetish. She was a really nice gal too! She was telling me that a lot of her friends crochet and they were asking her if she could make crochet cases. She said she had circular knitting needle holders but didn't bring them for the event. Here's my haul. :)
So we arrived at 10am and the doors opened at 11am, right? We were out the door by noon. There were way, way, way too many people inside the room. They hadn't turned the ac on until after it seemed filled to capacity and it was just crazy. It was like being @ warped tour stuck in the pit and trying to get away from it! lol. Once we were out the door, there was still a line to get in! They did a lot of press for the event and didn't anticipate having that many people come! There's another one in November and they've already said that it'll be at a bigger venue. I can't wait!! I'll have more money to spend by then!! We left and went and had lunch here which is apparently an upscale version of the Cheesecake Factory and then we rolled ourselves back home!