Hi Everyone

Thanks for your patience while I took my sabbatical from the blog.  It’s good to be getting back into the swing of things.

Shortly after New Year’s Steve & I headed out to Long Beach for the spring TNNA Show.  The show itself is only 3 days but between events and the fact that I’m actively involved in the organization itself unable to say “no” to my colleagues when it comes to projects and committees, I was in lovely LB for a total of 8 days.

The trip was great – enjoyed some of the most spectacular SoCal weather you can hope for in January, connected with many of the amazing people in our industry AND shopped.  I shopped for fiber-y things, but also go to do a little non-fiber shopping as well.  More on that in a minute.

The spring show is the smaller of the two.  Our suppliers introduce fewer yarns as the spring season is just that much shorter.  I often think we take the “seasonality” of knitting a bit too far – it’s not as if when the calendar hits March 21st everyone packs up their wool and alpaca yarns and only knit with cottons.

We do most of our major buying ahead of the show but there are always new and exciting products to be discovered.  One accessory that stopped me in my tracks was this beauty:

This is the Monroe bag from Namaste.  I.Love.It.  We’ve carried the Namaste line for awhile – they make a great product that looks good and is functional.  Bags are a very personal thing and although I’ve liked their bags in the past, they haven’t necessarily been my style.  This one is.  Why?  I love the lines, I love that it doesn’t have reversse-stitching as many of their bags do, I love the size, room with out being too big.  It has great compartments. 

It has symmetry and I love symmetry.  We’ll have this bag in stock shortly in all of the colors.  I was personally torn between black and the lime – you can see which won out.  Any guesses what that skein of yarn is in my bag???

Another find that tickles me to no end is Iris:

Iris is the result of a collaboration between Rebecca Danger of Danger Crafts and Lorna’s Laces.  Iris isn’t just your average monster, she’s a Gourmet Monster.  She has an entire bio on the back of the package.

She loves food – everything from the preparation to, of course, the eating.  Her favorite food?  Cheese – good cheese, gourmet cheese.  Iris and I have the potential to be VERY good friends.

Iris comes several sizes based on the yarn used and in the six new cool colorways that Beth introduced at the show.  Here’s the smaller Iris:

We have something very special in the works for this adorable monster so stay tuned!  The kits themselves will be up on the site and available shortly.

Lantern Moon wins the prize for the coolest display at the show.  Look at how they arranged all of their faboo accessories:

I only wish my camera/photography skills could have captured the real beauty of this display.  Kudos to the Lantern Moon team!

As Steve & I were walking the show, this caught our eye:

Gail’s (a.k.a. the Kangaroo Dyer) soon-to-be-released book was there!  We saw her book in the wild – all grown-up and out on it’s own!  It stopped Steve & I in our tracks and I think even Steve let out a little *squee*.  The lady manning the distributor booth mentioned it was not out yet and I explained “I know – the author works with us!”  Gail is our guest on this week’s episode of Ready, Set, Knit so be sure to tune in on Saturday or download the podcast to hear all about the book!  You can also pre-order it on our site or in the store!

There were some other great new yarns that we purchased that we’ll be talking about in the coming days and weeks so be sure to check back.

I was able to take an afternoon to myself before heading home.  Ironically, I opted for some retail therapy here:

I love to shop and I don’t have a lot of options in Western Mass.   Shopping in an A or probably an A+ mall is a treat – getting to see trends in style & color, checking out displays and merchandising  is such a treat.  Then there were the shoes. . . . . . .

But the true exclamation point at the end of this trip was this:

A gorgeous California sunset over Bloomies

Kathy

Tags: TNNA Long Beach