Adventure in a Stairwell

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Robin

Oooh! This sounds exciting… and maybe scary. Not really. But I came up with that idea while in said stairwell and thinking about Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher and all those other heroes who narrowly escape with their lives Every Time they are being chased.

This morning wrote a blog post about being at TNNA. We stayed on the 5th floor of the hotel. On Sunday I had a little extra time before getting to the show and I thought I’d go up to the top floor. After checking out the view from the 26th floor…

…ooops! Turns out its the one that I misidentified in the last post as the view from our room…I decided to take the stairs down. May as well get a little exercise even though gravity would do most of the work. (Notice that I hadn’t thought to take the stairs UP!)

I opened the door to the stairwell and there was a guy sitting on the floor facing away from the door. Beard. Backpack. I think that maybe he was writing something. That’s all I noticed because I thought that maybe I shouldn’t stare or otherwise engage…thinking about those books and movies. I started down the stairs.

Your typical stairwell, although cleaner than some. 8 steps.

8 more steps.

8 more steps. Sometimes at the landing I would make a turn clockwise just to keep from getting too twisted in one direction.

Sometimes I walked back up a flight just for the heck of it.

Things changed when I got to the first floor.

Surprise! Notice the blue barrier at the bottom. There is a swinging gate there. The door to the right…

…is this one. Guess I can’t go out there. So I went through the little blue gate.

There were three choices. Go down the next set of stairs or go through one of two doors.

Surprise again! Look at what is in Door #1.

Yes, it’s a chandelier among all the pipes.

This was next to Door #2. The door was closed and I didn’t open it.

I chose the blue stairs.

Another message of positive thinking. I chose not to go through that door because I kind of thought that I was where I wasn’t supposed to be.

Back up the pretty blue stairs…

…to what I recognized and through…

…the door to the second floor.

Uh oh! Do you ever open a door to a stairwell or the back door of a commercial building and wonder if you’ll ever get back in? Is that door locked from the other side? In this case I came through the door on the right, but wanted to make sure that the door on the left would really open or I’d be stuck forever in this little room with no window. Before the first door shut completely I made sure that the other door would open.

Whew! I made it into the safety of the hotel.

Please don’t judge me. I’ve told you before that I write blog posts in my mind all the time. You can be thankful that many of them never make it to the keyboard. But now you see how I sometimes amuse myself.

TNNA 2017

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Robin

Every January I meet up with my long-time friend, Irene, who owns Cotton Clouds, a mail-order business based in Arizona, to go to the Winter Show of The National Needlearts Association. Since I’ve been going it’s been in San Diego (2016 and 2014) or Phoenix (2015 and 2012) or Long Beach (2013 and 2011). This year it was in San Jose, only an hour and a half from here (on a weekend without commute traffic), so Irene flew to Sacramento and spent a few days here before we both drove to the show.

TNNA wasn’t the only thing in town on Saturday.

There was plenty of pink visible.

Other colors too. Why does Irene always look more excited in these photos of us together?

Big fat yarns seem to be the new thing this year.

I managed to find a few sheep.

After spending a few hours at the show we checked into our hotel where we had a room on the 5th floor.

This is the view…

…and this is the art work on the wall.

We went back to the convention hall. We had been seeing groups of young (mostly) men (mostly) wearing black (mostly) who were attending something in the convention center but didn’t quite fit the demographics of the yarn buyers and sellers. Irene spoke to one group and we found out that they were competing in the Super Smash Brothers Tournament, a Nintendo gaming event (if I’m using the right terminology). It’s worth looking at this link for a view into an obsession a little different than the fiber one (maybe takes up less space?) A quote from the article: “For video games you don’t need depth perception at all,” he explains, sounding almost Baudrillardian, “there’s no depth: it’s just right there.” Put in perspective, that quote is from a gamer who is blind in on eye. We may bring out fiber swatches and knitting needles. They bring their own controllers.

Back to the Fiber Hall.

I love how this sign was made.

Very clever.

I like the look of this fabric…

…woven on this loom which I have in the shop and eventually on the website.

We talked with a lot of vendors. This is Francis Chester-Cestari who has sheep and a fiber mill in Virginia and promotes American grown fiber. Irene is looking at some of his U.S. grown cotton. Notice the book on his table. That’s his memoir.

I didn’t come away from this show with all the new products that I usually do, although I do have some lotion bars with sheep on them (see photo in one of the collections above). There weren’t as many vendors and I really don’t need more yarn. What I need is a better way to market what I already have before adding more. So my investment this year is a new modern website! You’ll be hearing more about that in a month or so.

TNNA 2015

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Robin

TNNA is The National NeedleArts Association and there is a trade show every winter. This year’s was in Phoenix where I met up with my friend of 35 years, Irene who owns Cotton Clouds.

We stayed at the Hyatt… …and here is the view from our window. Kind of makes me think of Ghostbusters. But wait……Here it is as I saw it without the aid of the camera.

We spent Saturday and Sunday on the show floor. I hadn’t planned to buy anything for my shop this year because it is already pretty full. But there were some things that I couldn’t resist.

This is just to pique your interest. I will be selling these kits and developing a new class in this technique for making very cool scarves. What a way to use up leftover yarn! Sincere sheep cormo I already sell Sincere Sheep’s Bannock Targhee yarn but then I saw their Cormo yarn that is grown and spun in Wyoming. How can I choose from all these colors? I really can’t have them all. Sincere sheep cormo (1) These will be in the shop in a couple of months. I saw the “Olympic sweater” in person. This sweater was knit with very soft wonderful yarn that I sell here and that I used in some of the pieces in my November show.

Irene and I took a class taught by Judith Sangold who wrote a wonderful book called Weave-Knit-Wear which I will have in the shop shortly. An advantage of taking the class was that we got to try on the garments that are in the book. They all fit me just right!

There were photo ops…

In the Spinning and Weaving Group’s booth with Liz Gipson, promoting Spinzilla……and with Irene. Hey, why am I wearing the funky hat and she didn’t dress up?

This is in the Lavishea booth. I’ll be getting new scents of this great lotion bar. Is there something about us that says The Beautiful Hero and the Weird Sidekick?Speaking of weird, what about this book? I love some of the projects in it. How about a knitted moosehead to hand over your fireplace or a knitted wolf head hat? Hey, I’d wear that scarf. Did you know that I made my husband a cow tie once complete with head and tail? But that’s another story.This is Irene and me sandwiching a new friend who also designs kits for Irene but whom I’d never met.

And speaking of yarn, here is more that I bought:Unfortunately this lovely lady won’t be coming home with it because she had to return to England. The yarn is called Titus, after Sir Titus Salt who became important in the burgeoning textile industry in Yorkshire in the early 1800’s. It is a wonderful blend of Wensleydale, BFL and alpaca. I couldn’t afford to buy bags of all 13 colors but will be getting these 4 as well as packs that include all the colors in small quantities.

Here is one more photo of Irene and me. I just learned how to use Instagram and this is my first photo on it.

After getting home I emptied all my loot out on a couple of tables. Can you believe that I got all of this into my carry-on suitcase along with my clothes?

Robin Goes Shopping

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Robin

I am not a shopper. I once told the guys at Higby’s, my favorite feed store (that carries some clothing), that if either they or Ace Hardware carried underwear then I’d never have to shop anywhere else.

Shopping for yarn and fiber related toys is another story. That’s what the TNNA trade show is all about. It is where shop owners go to find all the products they want in their shops for the coming year. Every year I meet up with my friend, Irene, of Cotton Clouds and we spend the weekend shopping and working on weaving ideas and solving life problems.

This year’s show was in San Diego, but the show was in the Convention Center so no scenic outdoor photos. You don’t get to buy things in the main trade show hall because its set up to place orders for items to be carried in stores. However, the first night they have Sample It, where vendors can sell one or two of their new items and us hungry shoppers can go away with yarn and other goodies. This is the line to get into Sample It. This is the Yarn Wall where you can fill pages with samples of all the distributors newest yarns.The Spinning and Weaving market segment now has it’s own group under the umbrella of TNNA. Spinzilla was a very successful promotion that began in 2013 to raise funds to bring the spinning craft into the Needle Arts Mentoring program. Meridian Jacobs hosted a team last year and will do so again in 2014.There are also opportunities to take classes. I took a class to learn about making felfs. Wouldn’t these be nice in Jacob yarn with a horn button? cardboard sheep

I found sheep without even going outside……in all colors……and styles……and things in colors of sheep. Some will be arriving in my shop soon!Yarn is presented in a variety of ways.Hungry?This one reminds me of gummy worms but I don’t think that is the intent.Unusual colors were inspired by a yarn enthusiast who is involved in cat rescue.But the best thing about going to TNNA is getting together with friends… …during the show… …and after.