TNNA

Finally, I have decided to take a few minutes to talk about TNNA. As you probably know, it was in Columbus in early June. We went from the rainy, gray weather of Portland to 90+ degree heat with very high humidity. I had been warned that Ohio in any month related to summer can be miserable. From a weather perspective, I would have to say my one experience to date confirms that. However the part of the city where the show is located is actually pretty nice and people were very pleasant.

Below are some pictures of the Gardiner Yarn Works booth. I apologize for the quality of the pictures. Our spot was kind of dark and I had to stand far away to get the entire booth in the picture.


You can see a few of the new designs more clearly in this one.

In this picture you may be able to make out the crochet items on the far left. Those are the designs of Mary Beth Temple, a friend of Chrissy's. She was giving TNNA exhibiting a whirl. Too bad the pictures are so bad or you could get a better view of her clever designs, including a pair of socks that have crocheted legs and knit feet.

The show itself went pretty well. I love trade shows, especially the chatting part. Unfortunately there wasn't as much foot traffic as I would have liked so I managed to get a lot of knitting done between visits. I guess that's not all bad.

As was the case last time though, the people were the most interesting part of the week for me. In addition to catching up with some folks I had met last time, I also met some fun new people. For example Anne Hanson from Knitspot fame. She is even more lovely in person than I would have guessed from her blog. Here she is with Cookie A, Janel Laidman and Chrissy.

Janel, by the way, has just self-published a fantastic new book called The Eclectic Sole. I was able to have a nice long look at it and I have to say it is one of the most beautiful sock books I have ever seen. I highly recommend it and actually am looking forward to getting my own copy some time soon!

Another person I really enjoyed meeting this year was Jessica from Rose-Kim Knits. I have a photo of her but it is not terribly flattering, so I'm going to skip it this time. I have been enjoying Jessica's blog on a daily basis for some time now and it was a pleasure to learn that she is just as delightful in person as she is in print.

The person whom I was most excited about meeting this year though was Julie, one of the Gardiner Yarn Works test knitters. She lives in Columbus and allowed us to ship some things to her, which she then delivered, in the heat, to the convention center. She really went above and beyond, which made things so much smoother for us! Additionally, she is just super nice and it was a pleasure to meet her. Hi Julie, if you're reading this I want to say thanks, again!

Well, as usual this has gotten way too long and I've barely started. So I'll just wrap this up by saying knitters are great and getting so many people together who care about knitting and knitting stuff can only be good, right?