TNNA

Jill and I were at TNNA (The National NeedleArts Association) trade show last week in San Diego. The Y2Knit booth was a busy place and we took lots of orders. We only wished the weather had been nicer! I expect San Diego to be warmer than 40 degrees this time of year! As luck would have it, back home in Funkstown it was in the 60s.

We like going to TNNA as it's a great place to network with others in the industry. We see many of our favorite people, like Donna McGranaghan, the Skacel rep who also reps our patterns. She introduced us to Sherry, another Skacel rep, who is eager to knit up our new Four Directions pattern in Trekking sock yarn.

For this trade show, we joined the "Red Carpet Collaborative", a group of 7 companies that bought extra booth space where we set up a "beach", with chairs and water. Jill and I decorated. I loved the barbecue grill (at left) with yarn kabobs from Universal Yarn. We made "drinks" with yarn in Starbucks cups with needles sticking through the hole.

Someone brought a "palm tree" and I had fabric birds we hung from the tree, along with Jill's fabulous Valentine thong. There were a few bikinis about too - little stuff knitting that Jill loves to do. The beach turned out to be a nice place for people to sit and rest or knit. The market area is huge and there's lots of walking and standing.

What did we buy?
More colors of sock/fingering yarn and boucle from Claudia Hand Painted Yarn. Her booth was right across the aisle from us, so we got to see lots of her and her beautiful yarn (she's beautiful too).

Skacel has new colors of Zitron yarns (Mr. Zitron is a color genius and he must like redheads) so we stocked up on Trekking for socks and Four Directions. We are totally excited about their new needle felting kits--stay tuned for more about that. Let me just say "make your own fabric". Jill has plans for a skirt! I'm thinking a bag and buttons. It's very cool and if we'd had the supplies in our hotel room, we would have been felting! The colorways are by Zitron--need I say more?

Kraemer Yarns has four new colors in Tatamy Tweed: turquoise, coral, avocado, and ginger. Yummy! They also are offering TT in worsted weight, so we are getting some of that.

We have new Denise needle sets in pink--$5 goes to breast cancer research.