| I think I've finally recovered from such an intensive weekend. When we planned our trip to TNNA, I never imagined it to be so physically taxing—but it was SO worth it! I had some great travel companions—Cecily Glowik MacDonald and Melissa LaBarre were such great company, I really enjoyed our time together.
I also met, and revisited with lots of fun people at the show! Friday night, shortly after our arrival, we joined about 30 other yarny-folks for dinner at the Rock Bottom Cafe. Marly Bird was so kind to organize the whole thing—to get all of us together for mingling and enjoying great food. There were so many people here, I sat closest to Tara Jon Manning, who I had met last March at the Mindful Knitting Retreat I attended; Mary-Heather (from the Ravelry crew!); and the Bijou Bison Ranch folks. Down the other end of the table were, Jess and Casey (the creators of Ravelry), Eunny Jang (editor of Interweave Knits), Amy O'Neill Houck and many others!
It was also great to put a face to a bunch of people who I've never met in person. It's so nice to have finally met these people: Anne Merrow (a fantastic editor at Interweave Press), Marilyn Murphy (Interweave fiber division publisher & yarn division editorial director), Trisha Malcom (the editor of Vogue Knitting), Mary Beth Temple, and some of the Classic Elite sales reps.
And I loved seeing these people again, even if it was only for a brief "hello, how was your trip?"—always good energy! Kim Werker and Veronik Avery.
In addition to meeting tons of great people, I wanted to go to TNNA to learn about a larger variety of yarns. Because I work at CEY, I admit, I'm spoiled with their yarns, but I also feel somewhat sheltererd. So, I wanted to learn more about what else is available in the knitting world! And boy did I!!! I fell in love with so many other yarns, it's rediculous! I can totally understand now how a knitters stash can get out of control. I'm lucky that we couldn't buy yarn at the show, I'd be broke—but I'd have beautiful yarns! To coin Melissa's term, I have yarn crushes on a bunch of companies:
The Fibre Company has two of my favorite yarns from the show, Road to China light and Terra! I Totally can't wait to start playing with these! Road to China in Fair Isle and Terra in Lace... we'll see what becomes of it! Kate and Courtney are great company—we joined them (and Anne Merrow) for a wandering around town and a Thai dinner on Saturday night—funny people.
Bijou Bison Ranch has gorgeous yak yarn... yes, yak! It's super soft, believe it or not; Marly recently designed a stunning sweater in their Yak/Bamboo yarn.
O-wool has such beautiful wools, and they're organic to boot! Marin was super nice, informative and was kind enough to give me some samples to play with! I've started swatching a brioche stitch in their balance yarn and I SO love it. I can't wait to fondle the others.
At the Mango Moon booth, I fell in love with their Dharma yarn—100% recycled silk! I'm not much of a silk fan, mainly because the poor little silk worm needs to die to make the silk, but recycled silk feels better. What attracted me to their booth was their beaded semi-precious gemstone threads. I really loved them plied together with Dharma, it created such a unique fabric. I think adding semi-precious gemstones to knitting is a fabulous idea... or maybe I just love semi-precious gemstones. ::shrug::
Tanglewood Fiber Creations has some amazing hand dyed, hand spun cashmere. Oh, to die for!
There are SO many fantastic yarns out there, that I really could go on forever about them!
At the Soho Publishing booth (Vogue Knitting, Knit Simple, etc…) Cecily, Melissa and I all found sweaters we designed for their newest issues. How cool is that? Mine's in the Winter issue of Knit Simple
I wish there was more time to really get to hang out with more people and play with more yarn. There's always next time!
|
Me, Cecily, Melissa
Admiring the O-wool samples
Hugging Road to China
Me, Melissa & Cecily at the Soho (vogue) Booth with our sweaters
|
