Dave and I had a fabulous time in Columbus, Ohio for the summer TNNA trade show. We talked to tons of people, fondled lots of fabulous yarn, and managed to find time for some fun along the way.

Getting there

Our flight out of southern California was on time, but early, early, early. A friend came over to take us to the airport at 5:30 am. Other than the hour, everything went just fine with that flight. We even discovered that a couple of the attendants on that flight are friends with one of the pilots we know who flies for that airline. Like most people flying on Friday, our connecting flight out of Dallas was delayed, then instead of making up the time in the air, we actually lost even more time, and landed in Columbus 1½ hours late. After picking up our luggage, getting a cab, checking into our room, and doing a very quick change of clothing, we found our way across the street to the convention center, and to the room where the fashion show was already in progress. It was fun seeing all those knits on the runway. We got our hands on a program after the fact, and discovered that the fashion show must have started a bit late, as we saw most of it.

Antigua is done!

Friday evening, while relaxing in our room after a very long day, I finished knitting Antigua. I didn’t block it until day before yesterday. It’s huge. I haven’t measured it since it was pinned out—it’s undoubtedly relaxed a bit since then—but when pinned it was 88 inches across. I’ve yet to figure out how much yarn I used, all that stuff, but there’s a lot of yarn left on the hank—definitely enough to knit a good sized scarf or small shawl out of. I’ve written up the pattern in four or five sizes (don’t remember which at the moment), and this is the largest one.

First full day at TNNA

Saturday started with classes for both of us. Dave took a business on the Internet class, and I took a class from Sally Melville: First Choices, Basic Shapes. Dave managed to learn a few things from his class, and was reminded of other things he already knew but had temporarily forgotten, so that was worthwhile, and I learned a ton from Sally’s class. I learned so much, that I’m going to rip out the West Coast Swing cardigan I knit last autumn, and start over. Yes, I’ve been wearing the sweater. No, I haven’t released the pattern yet. And I’m glad. The more I wear that sweater, the less pleased I am with it. Ripping it out and starting over will be just the thing to do. In spite of the absolutely perfect button I found for it at Stitches West in February.

After our classes were over, we headed for the market. Though Dave’s been to a lot of conventions in his day, he hadn’t seen anything like this. One of the first things he noticed was how quiet it was in there. He’s used to high-tech conventions, where people and products are talking, buzzing, bonking, beeping over loud speakers every time you turn a corner. There’s nothing like that at a needle arts convention. Yarn and needlepoint canvases do their talking subliminally. Appealing to your sense of touch and your imagination, they provide eye-candy and hit your emotions not your ears.

First thing we did when we got into the market was to head to a well-known distributor’s booth. We’ve been talking with this distributor about getting my patterns to more shops for a couple of months now. We wanted to meet him in person, see the booth, etc. Another reason we wanted to see the booth was that I’d sent samples of seven of my pieces to be displayed for the show. They were hung in a prominent spot, and looked great. This was just the first of several conversations we were to have with the distributor over the next couple of days.

Next up, we found our way to the Claudia Hand Paints booth, to see Domus Aurea in action and talk to Claudia. She loves the shawl. She said that everyone loves the shawl. They all tried it on when it arrived the week before the show. One of her employees is going to knit it herself, right away.

Hold on a sec. I’ll be right back.

Sorry about that brief interruption, but Dave just came by with a long Internet cable, and moved me into the dining room. While not ideal, it’s a whole lot more comfortable here at the dining room table on a real chair, than perched on a bar stool. Yes, diagnostics are still going on my computer downstairs. He took the data drive out, attached it to one of his computers, and is now running diagnostics on both drives at the same time. Though obviously faster than doing them one at a time, it’ll be at least another day before we know anything. Argh.

Anyway, we found our way to a few other booths on my list, later swung by Interweave’s booth to get a signed copy of Cookie A.’s first book, Sock Innovation. It was marvelous seeing Cookie again. She still recognizes me. Amazing. Dave loved meeting her. She’s such a doll. She even happily posed for this picture with me. Thank you, Cookie!

Take me out to the ballgame

Not only had we not planned on going to the local Stitch ‘n Pitch game on Saturday evening (World Wide Knit in Public Day), we’d definitely planned not to go—we were both beat after a long day and a short night (our hotel room neighbors woke us at oh-dark something and I never did get back to sleep, though thankfully Dave did)—until a pair of tickets landed in our laps, at which point we realized that we needed to be at that game. We headed for the buses that would drive us the short distance to the ballpark less than an hour after the market closed for the day.

We had a fabulous time at the ballgame. We were told that the stadium was practically brand new, and it looked it. Though not absolutely packed, there was quite a good turnout, I thought. We met some great people at the game, including this marvelous quartet who ended up sitting behind us: Astrid and Siv from Dale of Norway, Kim, and Therese Chynoweth (some of her designs on Ravelry). Watch for Therese’s book coming out early next year on Norwegian finishing techniques.

What did I knit at the ballgame, since my shawl was done? Why, I cast on for a sock from Cookie’s new book, of course, and knit up all the ribbing. I’m making Wanida. I’ve been thinking lately that a simple project to take to knit knight, to work on now and then when my brain is fried, would be just the thing. I know. “Simple” and “Cookie A.” don’t normally belong in the same sentence, but Wanida is pretty easy for one of Cookie’s patterns. Not having to make any decisions about the pattern is a relief, and definitely simplifies the whole knitting experience—even if there are a number of yarn overs and knit-two-togethers, and SSKs on every other row.

If the photo of Dave in a crowd, and the ladies perched on a bleacher aren’t enough proof to you that we really were at a baseball game, I submit the following:

Yarn pron

Sunday was spent going to more booths, talking to more people, getting a little yarn to take home and knit. I’m sure you were wondering when I’d be getting around to the yarn pron that I teased you with yesterday. First up is a hank of Bellezza from Nancy at Chameleon Colorworks. You won’t finid Bellezza on Nancy’s site yet. It’s a brand new lace weight yarn, and is stunning. It’s 100% extra fine merino wool, and comes on a two ounce hank that gives 610 yards of yarn-y goodness. The hank I have is in a new colorway, that also isn’t on the site yet: Black Sheep. The color is one of those tonal things, shifting back and forth between black and shades of gray. I’m looking forward to knitting with it. It’ll be lovely. We saw Anne Hanson when we were visiting Nancy’s booth. It was good to see her again. Hi Anne!

The other yarn I brought home is Kami Bison from Fibre-Isle International. Did your ears perk up when I mentioned the name of this yarn? Yes, it has bison fiber in it, among other things. This is how it works out: 60% bamboo, 30% merino, and 10% bison. Sylvie buys died fleece, then spins the different colors together to create her beautiful and unique yarns. When you look at her site you’ll see Mooi listed there. Sylvie spins the beautiful Mooi yarns for Louet. Back to the Kami Bison. It’s fabulous. It’s so amazingly soft. I knit up a small swatch with it a couple days ago, then ripped it back. I don’t want to waste a single bit of this yarn. I want it all to go into the shawl I’ll be making with it. I think I have my stitches picked out. Now to nail down how the shawl will look, do a swatch just with the stitches I have in mind, before I cast on for the real thing.

Winding up and pattern news

Not only did we have a great time, make some stunning new contacts, and come home with yarn, but we’re 99.999% sure that we came home with a deal with the distributor we visited with about my patterns. It’ll be 100% sure on our end when we get that first order, probably some time next week. When that happens there will be some changes around here, one in particular that you may be unhappy about, especially at first, especially if you’re in the U.S. or Canada.

One of the conditions of going with this distributor is that I not sell PDF patterns. It turns out that shops don’t like it when customers come in with patterns they’ve downloaded from the Internet. Dave and I talked about this a lot, and we feel that going to 100% printed patterns within the U.S. will ultimately get more of my patterns into more knitter’s hands. That’s what it’s all about, right? While knitting and designing are the best career I’ve had so far, they’re also my job. I need to be paid for my job, just like I did when I worked for someone else, so I can do boring things like pay bills. In order to do that, and hopefully at some point to be able to do more than to just pay the bills, I need to sell more patterns. While Internet sales of my patterns have been good, over all I know I could sell a lot more patterns if I can only get them in front of more people. That’s where the distributor comes in. In addition to the orders that he took for me at TNNA, and in spite of his teasing I have a feeling they did fairly well there, I get nearly instant access to 2,500 shops across the country. I’m sure that quite a few of those shops will have Internet sites where you’ll be able to buy printed patterns online. I know of two right off the bat (pardon the baseball analogy), as I already sell them printed patterns: Elann and Earth Faire. You’ll have to wait for the patterns to show up at your door, but you’ll be able to get the yarn at the same time, and that’s good, right? I hope you understand. This was a purely business decision.

To those of you who are not in North America: Dave is certain that he’ll be able to make adjustments to the web site, so that those farther away will still be able to get PDF patterns. At least for now. I’m hoping in the future to find reputable distributors in other countries. But that’s a while out yet.