Back from Long Beach, attending TNNA trade show. I told my husband that I was going out of town for a couple of days and he asked where I was going? I said Long Beach. Then he asked since when is Long Beach out of town?
We live in Venice Beach and Long Beach is about 25 miles from our home. It takes about 30 minutes drive if there is no traffic. So it was sort of funny for me to call Long Beach out of town and staying at a hotel when I could have been in my own bed, silly me. I'll know next time. I think it would have been easier for me to just drive down each day..... oh well.
Got there on Thursday and took a weaving class. It started out really well then my eyes started crossing and my counting got confused and I got confused but I at least got the idea. I'm not the greatest weaver but I hung in there. All those stripes! Yikes my eyes!
Friday was "Sample it!"one of the most fun parts of the whole event. This is where the merchants put a small sampling of their wares together and you can purchase the items. I'll write about these in another post. The line to get in was looong, everybody loves Sample It.
Saturday, Sunday and Monday is the actual show. The layout of the convention center was confusing to me but I was already tired and confusion came easily or perhaps all the wool fumes got to me. When I looked at the map it seemed pretty easy and straight forward but in person it seemed different. I carefully mapped out the booths that I was interested in first.
The dark purple area to the left were the knitting related booths and the orange area are the Needlepoint stuff. I always check it all out because I love looking at all the pretty Needdlepoint canvases. And once in a while they stick a yarn or fiber related booth in with the Needlepointers. I always admire the needlepoint work but just can't seem to have the patience to do it. Needle felting maybe but not needlepoint.
Unicorn Books, was my first stop they are my favorite part of the show. I wanted to say hi because they are so nice and to get tickets for the book signings I was interested in. We get to meet the authors of new books, which is great. I get to ask questions about their book, how long it took to write it, what inspired them, is this the first book they wrote etc. Love this part of the show. Of the 14 books they had my two favorites were:
The Artful Color Mindful Knits by Laura Militzer Bryant. As a dyer this book is full of wonderful information about color repeats, how to dye or pick yarns for "stacking" colors or "pooling" etc. The "magic number" how many stitches do you get from a color repeat. As I say, love this book and will get lots of use out of it.
And the Principles of Knitting, revised and updated from the original version. A must have for a serious knitter. It's a huge book and full of Methods and Techniques. Those were the two books that I really appreciated getting.
Next was Skacel, I always love visiting this booth because they have hands on "try this" and their products are of highest quality. Visiting with Karin and chatting about knitting and felting is always a lot of fun for me.
They had the addi Quick Neelde Felting tool! I can hardly wait for mine to arrive.
Last but not least I met the lovely lady from Kollage, square needles and Made in the USA! I cast on immediately to try these needles and I love the yarn also. 80% milk-20% cotton, so very soft!
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