TNNA Wrap Up

I feel like it has taken ages to get around to writing this post - you all have been keeping us quite busy catching up with orders and e-mails! (That's a good thing!) As so many people have already blogged about this weekend, the single best thing about TNNA is that everywhere you go, you are completely surrounded by people who not only understand your borderline-unhinged infatuation with yarn, but actually share your obsession. The convention floor is row after row of soft, squishy, gorgeous skeins of yarn in every color and fiber and weight, and everywhere are people petting it rather unabashedly. Most surrounding hotels are taken over by knitters, and even our hotel, which was a little off the beaten TNNA path, had enough knitters that when they asked why we were in town, "yarn convention" didn't seem to alarm them. And since blogging is a huge part of the yarn and fiber community, everywhere you see faces that look strangely familiar - then you go back to your hotel room and try to figure out who that is. At one point, I was standing at a booth right behind Amy Singer and apparently forgot that while I know her, she definitely doesn't know me, so I said "Hi!" like we are old friends and I think she wasn't sure if she should know me.

Cool moment of the weekend - we met Jess, Casey, and Mary-Heather! To echo everyone else who met them this weekend - the Ravelry folks are so nice and enthusiastic and excited to hear about everyone's Ravelry experiences, so it was really cool to get to talk to them. (and they gave us daily dose of fiber stickers, and Ravelry buttons!) I happened to be waiting for my friend outside the bathroom at precisely the right moment and got to talk to them for a few minutes and tell them how much we lovvve Ravelry and advertising on Ravelry, and they recognized our store name from our ads and said our ads are pretty, which was nice of them. (Did you know I make all of our Ravelry ads myself?)

We also got to stop buy the Malabrigo booth and meet Tobias and Antonio. They are doing quite well and are really upbeat about their situation, and it looks like we may actually be able to get a little Malabrigo to hold us over until they are up and running again. Meeting our vendors was really fun, because all of our communication has always been over the phone or e-mail. We also met Nancy from Dream In Color (and got a sneak peek of some top secret upcoming projects!) and Beth and Amanda from Lorna's Laces, where we got to see the four new colors just released!  We actually ordered these sight unseen the week before TNNA, so hopefully they will be in the shop a little sooner - we weren't at all surprised to find out that all four are gorgeous. I can't find any photos online yet, and of course no photography inside TNNA, so you'll have to see them as they arrive!

The big question most of you are probably wondering about is if we bought any new yarns - of course we did! We've got several new yarn lines from five new vendors coming in over the next couple of months, and we're bringing in some non-yarn items as well! Over the next few weeks, we'll have yarns arriving from:

• Shibui Knits - Sock, Merino Kid, and Silk Cloud
  
• Misti Alpaca - Handpainted Sock and Lace yarns in every color
  
• Pagewood Farm - Yukon Bamboo Sock, Worsted, Laceweight, and their newest Merino/Cashmere/Nylon blend Sock yarns

There are a couple of others, but we're keeping them under wraps for now since the shipping will take longer - you'll just have to be surprised!