TNNA Report
I’m back from Columbus and in some sort of weird cosmic shift towards the positive, I didn’t get stuck in the Atlanta airport in EITHER direction of my trip. But wait, that’s not all! I also finished a beanie for my friend Steve’s new son during the flight which means, I may actually get a baby gift to its recipient while he still in fact, is a baby. Buy a lottery ticket, people!
There’s something very strange about craft conventions when you work in the industry. It’s kind of like camp. You see the same people in San Diego, Atlantic City, Long Beach, Las Vegas, Atlanta & Columbus where you eat, sleep and yarn all within 1 square block of each other. When I arrived at the hotel, happy hour was already in full swing so I sat down to catch up and talk shop with Brett Bara, Candi Jensen, Kristen Nicholas, Nicky Epstein and Trisha Malcolm. It was good seeing everyone, but I was bummed to hear from Trisha that Knit.1 issues are being cut down again! I posted about it here.
Because I didn’t have much of an agenda for this show (other than trolling for products to review & yarn to play with), I completely spaced on the fact that I probably should’ve reached out and tried to meet-up with people I was hoping to hang out with. I briefly ran into Annie Modesitt, Stefanie Japel and Jesse from Ravelry–all of who I would’ve loved to grab a drink or coffee with, had I planned ahead. Alas.
The one time I did venture out of the convention-and-adjoining-hotel-compound (which P.S., was totally ill-prepared for feeding the amounts of people involved in a convention even though the very usage of the word “convention” in the title of their building would suggest that they had fair warning), was for a fantastic dinner with Drew Emborsky, Valerie (my new editor) and the Sterling publicity peeps. We went to a swanky neo-vegan restaurant that we’d all read about in an article on Columbus in BUST Magazine called, Dragonfly. My lord, it was delicious! We ordered 1 of almost everything on the menu and shared it family style. This included: pepperjack & asparagus pizza, pistachio pepperjack ravioli, gold potato gnocchi, hon shemjii calamari and organic red wine. Yum and yum!
The show ended for me with a morning interview over coffee with Drew (aka The Crochet Dude) for CRL, for an unplanned episode that will also include my fall yarn trend observations from TNNA. That is, if I can figure out how to get the rest of the podcast recorded with two, loud boys out of school on summer vacation!
I’m so happy for you that the book is such a success! I knew it would be when I saw it, yea!
I’ll really be looking forward to your next book! Eco-Stitch is an excellent name, by the way.
If you’re looking for yarns to use in the book, you might be interested in the eco-yarn chart that I put together on Green Knitter
Next time one of us should make sure we plan a proper date so we don’t miss each other (again). I vote for you, but, you know, you might have different ideas. 🙂 (But seriously. In Sept. I’ll make sure we make a coffee date for the Jan. TNNA.)
I’ve been a lurker here for a while and I LOVE Knitty Gritty on DIY/HGTV. I’ve never left a comment before, because, hey why would you need to hear from little ol’ me. But, I have to say this…I’M SO BUMMED! You were in Columbus, and I would have jumped at the chance to say hi and get a book signed! I’ve been out of “crafting” for a while due to having a baby and work, and just life in general, so I didn’t even kow there was a convention here. All that to say, I’m sorry I missed you and you have to come back!!!
Julie
mmmmmcoffeemmmmmmm
I’m from Columbus and was so excited to hear you would be in town, and then so disappointed when I realized there was little chance I’d make it to the convention center. But that Hyatt Regency was where I spent my wedding night!
There are so many spectacular places around downtown. It’s too bad most of what you saw was from your hotel room window – and on the wrong side of the hotel! The other side looks out over the Arena District and is beautiful.
You’ll have to come back to Columbus soon and see more of it!
Evergreen–Thanks for saying that. The publisher originally thought it sounded to sew-y–but with the help of my editor, we convinced them that “stitch” was just as common of a term in knitting & crochet as it is in any other needle art. 🙂
Stephanie–I know, I’d really like to go back and see the city.
Julie– I LOVE when people comment. Makes me feel less like I’m talking to myself. 😉 No worries about not making it, it was really more of an industry thing anyway, so not that exciting (ie. no retail goodness) and not open to the public. My friend Kelley lives in Dayton though and has a book coming out soon too, so maybe we can unite and do a couple of Ohio events. We’ll see!
Kim–I know, I was thinking the same thing. Can’t believe I didn;t see you at all! BTW, just got the new IC–issue looks great!