TNNA wrap-up

By the last day or so of TNNA, we were already starting to feel overwhelmed by all we had seen. So I'll finish off my TNNA recap with a photo montage, and of course some commentary stuck in.

One thing that really overwhelms me by the end of the weekend is the number of gorgeous yarns and interesting booth set-ups that one sees. Here is the booth of Philadelphia's own O-Wool:


Spud and Chloe/Blue Sky always set up an interesting display; Ysolda Teague's booth was set up for tea service along with her photo booth (she had lots of garments from her new book to try on, which was fun); and I could spend hours and hours at the Rowan booths.

Speaking of Rowan, I did get to meet Mr. Martin Storey, who was gracious and lovely as I gushed how much I love his patterns:

(Thanks to Craig for taking the photo!)

I ran into some of the kniterati, like Stefanie Japel -- I am so envious of her gorgeous curly hair!


I kept running into Kimberly, a.k.a. Somebunny'slove, but this is always a good thing.



And I got to chat with Cat Bhordi, who is delightful. (I forget the name of that person standing next to her. I think it was some weirdo who ran up and begged me on her knees to take her photo.)





(See how persistent she was? See Abby Franquemont trying to edge away from the crazy lady with Cat?)


I absolutely love Ron and Theresa from Buffalo Gold, (above, Ron is posing with MMO and Cat)and Laura did too. Here's a photo of them in the booth with Laura (below). (Look for my scarf pattern knit in Ron and Theresa's yarn in the next Vogue Knitting!!!)



How could I not ham it up with my pal Craig?

Um, I think my shirt was pooching out in that photo -- I am most definitely NOT pregnant.

I made sure to see MMO's booksigning (and the folks at R&M were wonderful).




(They were so wonderful they even had my book on the shelves!)


For some reason, the TNNA people had set up an example of yarnbombing.



And of course I stopped by Trisha Malcolm's booksigning -- she was signing copies of the fabulous new Noro book that just came out (I'll review it soon):



Here's Mary Beth and Craig:


And our friends at PotterCraft were celebrating their fifth anniversary with free champagne and cupcakes! Nom, nom, nom.



(Somebody ate some of this one before I could even take the photo!)


Here is Sandi Rosner on her way to somewhere.....

Lots of interesting stuff coming up on the blog in the next weeks: previews of what some of the yarn companies will be showing for the fall, some more book reviews, a recap of my trip to Illinois....and more.

TNNA Report: part 2

We were a little reluctant to arise on Saturday morning, having had so much fun the night before, but we are also excited to get out on the show floor and see what goodies would be coming to the industry this fall. So we dragged ourselves out of bed, showered and headed out for a nice breakfast with Veve


at the Sunny Street Cafe -- which had the multiple advantages of being out of the hotel/convention center complex, and therefore cheaper, had decent food, and had the most charming manager.

Of course, even the charming manager could do nothing about Sad TNNA Breakfast:


Sad TNNA Breakfast was sad because so many of his good friends weren't there this year....(you know who you are).

We tried to breathe in as much fresh air as we could



while looking at the buildings around us,



before entering the Convention Center for a long but exciting day of exploring.

It's hard to get the big picture view of the show while you're there. You walk up and down aisle and after aisle, and Veronik yells at you if you go out of order so you have to strictly keep to the row you're in or she'll go all French on your derriere, and there is so much to see and so many people you know that it's a jumble of impressions. I'll do some separate posts on the some of the new products coming from our favorite companies, but generally speaking, I had these observations to make:

• the show seemed busy to me. Not every booth had tons and tons of customers, but most had healthy numbers of shop owners and I saw a lot of sales reps writing out orders.
• The show organizers seemed to have kept the needlepoint stuff and the knitting stuff more separate, so that no knitting vendors were stranded at the end of a section of needlepoint shopw or vice versa.
  
• One of the trends which I noticed was an increase in the number of novelty yarns. Not the same type of novelties that we saw 8 to 10 years ago, but rather bigger/thicker ones. We saw lots of self-ruffling yarns, where a very thick knit or woven fabric had a railroad-track-like top which you used to knit into. The yarn then artfully gathers and creates ruffles and swags. A nice lady at the Universal Yarn booth showed us how they work: dramatic effects that are fast and easy to make. (You can watch a video of Universal's Marina here.)
  
• We also noticed a lot of chainette yarns, many tending to the bigger gauges. Debbie Bliss had a lovely chainette called Paloma, a blend of 60% baby alpaca/40% merino wool, knitting at around 4 stitches per inch. The beauty of these yarns is that they can be knit at a bigger gauge but retain a certain lightness.
• Color-changing yarns also seem to be doing well. Debbie Bliss had a softly-changing yarn that looked lovely; Universal Yarns had several; Noro, of course, had many; Skacel showed a lot in their Zauberball range and Crystal Palace had a nice fingering weight one called Sausalito.
  
• We're still seeing lots of attention paid to recycling fiber and cloth and turning them into yarns, as well as continued interest in organics and environmentally-conscious processing. Lots of companies had yarns using recycled fiber of various kinds (one was made from old blue jeans) so that trend is still going strong.
• I thought I saw fewer small vendors, in particular fewer small handpaint yarn vendors and fewer indie designers with their own booths. Collaborative places (like the Ravelry booth) showcased some of the indie designers, but I recall seeing more people selling in their own booths in years past.

Contrary to what some people would have you believe, I did get a little bit of stalking and gawking in. For example, I kept a close eye on Melissa Morgan-Oakes



and managed to "kinnear" Martin Storey while he was at the Rowan booth.


(More on Mr. Storey in the next post)

Perhaps most scandalous, however, was my witnessing a blatant attempt of larceny at a leading knitting magazine's booth.


Watch this shameless attempt to shoplift a copy of a brand-new knitting magazine....



as this thieving Creative Director makes a dash.

(I put my money on Annie Bakken, though.)



Yup, looks like Annie gave him a good ass-whuppin'. I don't think Mr. Delvecchio will try that again any time soon.


to be continued

TNNA Report: part 1

It's going to take me several blog posts to tell you all about my trip to TNNA. After going a few years in a row, I've finally learned to travel light, to do as much pre-registering as possible (it's great when you can just go to the airport with your boarding pass in hand), and to leave a little room in one's baggage for any goodies that materialize.

Partner-in-crime Laura Grutzeck and I were very lucky: the weather was fine midday Friday and our plane was on time. Since we're both nervous flyers, this was especially nice. Our travel was pretty uneventful and before we knew it, we were checking into the Hyatt hotel. Just as we were getting out of the cab, we ran into Taiu and Rhichard of Koigu fame.


(And no inflatable men -- or women -- exchanged hands. Phew.)

Look at the lovely view of warehouse roofs we got to enjoy from our room:



A quick trip over to the Convention Center to get our badges was next. One thing I learned for next year is to pack my previous year's badgeholder and bring all my past year's pins; you get a new pin each year -- sort of like the Olympics only nerdier. Then you can walk around with dork flair. (This is the technical term for it.)

Guess who this adorable baby is?



Does this help?


Philadelphia's own Grace Anna Farrow, and her lovely daughter.

After a quick visit with them, we went back to our room to freshen up. Then Laura got to have dinner with Veve and several other cool Canadian chicks, while I attended Marly's fabulous designer dinner. I stumbled into an invitation, and was a little nervous, not having a single clue who would be there, but I ran into many old friends, including Somebunny's love, and Stitchy McYarnpants and so many others that I can't remember them all. (The amount of wine I drank had nothing to do with my memory lapse. Really. Honestly.) The dinner was at a tapas place, with excellent food. But the piece de resistance was the swag that we left with.

Marly apparently spent months contacting various companies in the industry and asking them for donations to the goodie bags. "Goodie bags" is kind of a deceiving way to describe the largesse we were given though; a metric ton of fibery goodness comes closer. We got yarn

we got buttons, tools, needles, hooks and other accessories;


there were tote bags, and coupons, and (believe it or not) the wonderful people at Namaste gave us each a bag:


Mine is the honeysuckle color that is Pantone's color of the year, and the lining is so adorable, with little hedgehogs:


I have to confess that I never owned a Namaste bag before, but now I think I will be adding one to my Christmas list, maybe one that will fit my laptop! It's beautifully made and cleverly designed, with lots of pockets. And did I mention the HEDGEHOGS?????

I had to go to the shipping place down the street and mail a box home to myself because all the swag I got wouldn't fit in my bag. Seriously.

So after a few more drinks at the Hyatt, catching up with lots of fun folks, I poured myself into bed, still so excited I could barely sleep.

to be continued

13 Things I learned at TNNA

1. There are very few pharmacies in downtown Columbus but there sure are a lot of Nationwide buildings.


2. Shannon Okey has lavender hair. At least this week.

3. The Icelandic phone book is organized by first name rather than last.

4. Fetishists buy used/worn socks on places like Ebay.

5. You can get excellent pierogi at the market across from the convention center. Plus the guy really speaks Polish!


6. Exchanging nametags and pretending to be someone else in the fiber world seems a lot more fun when you have had several glasses of wine, unless you are Abby Franquemont or Cat Bhordi.

7. Martha Stewart has created a new line of yarns, including an old skool fun fur. (Srsly.)

8. Flying isn't so bad if you take an Ativan first.


9. People from New Zealand don't like it when you assume they are Aussies.

10. Wooly Wormhead is a naughty minx.

11. I have made some of the most fabulous friends through the fiber world.

VeVe and I held hands

12. People wrestle in their bikinis with skyr. But not at TNNA.

13. I am not as young as I used to be.

More coming soon...