I’ve been back from my trip to Columbus, Ohio for the TNNA yarn-industry trade show for more than a week. It was such a whirlwind! And of course, when one has been gone from ordinary life/business for 5 days, getting home means a pile of un-finished work ready to attack when one returns.

Finally I have photos ready, and not a single one has a person in it. This is really too bad, because the most important essence of the show is the human connections we make while there.

First, my most exciting stop. I met Kristin Nicholas after over a year of contact in various ways (mostly blog watching/commenting). Here are photos of some of her designs from the book “Kristin Knits.”

Spectacular color use, don’t you agree? She does a lot of knitting colorwork but also does a fair share of embroidery (sometimes duplicate stitch, sometimes more free-form) to add even more color and/or texture. I think her style is just plain top drawer.

Other folks I spent time chatting with who also love color:

Margaret Radcliffe of Maggie’s Rags, who has a new book on color coming out late in 2008 (whoops, when I first posted this entry I said 2009 by mistake… it should be out before Christmas this year). I saw the mock-up (it was maybe a dozen pages) of the book, produced so she could show it off at the book conference and then this knitting trade show. It is going to be very exciting.

Jil Eaton of MinnowKnits. I have known of Jil for years online (what would we do without Yahoo Groups?) and I adore her color sense. She has a new line of yarn that is very exciting (MinnowMerino). It’s soft, washable (no pills, I saw a garter stitch swatch that had been washed/dried many times), 21 incredible rainbow-bright colors.

Classic Elite is putting out her yarn. It looks like a fluffy one-ply (singles for you spinners) and though she calls it worsted weight I think it’s like Brown Sheep Worsted, at 4.5st/inch (not like Cascade 220 or Nashua Creative Focus Worsted, both 220 yards/100gm and 5st/inch). For someone like me who likes pure, clear color in soft washable yarn, this is a very exciting product.

Oh, and another fun fact… Jil plays bass in a band which does a lot of 1930’s jazz. I play bass and we do mostly 1920’s very-early jazz. That was a lovely thing to discover as we were discussing yarn.

Beth Brown-Reinsel. Beth is a classic in all ways, a class act who is a good listener, patient and grounded, a great teacher and lover of all historical knitting. I first knew her through her Gansey sweater knitting book, but I’ve taken many classes from her over the years (including Norwegian Mittens, perhaps my favorite). She will be here in Lansing next weekend teaching a two-day Norwegian sweater class at Threadbear, and I may splurge if there is still room in her class when I get to Threadbear this afternoon.

I also got a little time with Joan McGowan-Michael of White Lies Designs, who does the most incredible shaped knitting! She makes curvy designs that are wonderful for girls of all shapes and sizes. I love her free “Shapely Tank” and “Shapely Tee” (drat, spelled it “shaped” rather than “shapely” when I first posted, so sorry to those who came before I added clickable links) online, and probably will make one of these one of these days.

The shapely pattern includes information on how to make bust darts/shaping for your size. Brilliant… she puts this free thing up, you see how good she is, and you’re ready to go buy her more complex designs. Good marketing, good design, nice person.

On Friday and on Monday, I also got time with my music friend, Megan Palmer, who is a singer-songwriter and lives in Columbus. I felt so grounded to be connecting with her besides all the folks on the convention floor. She took me to a teahouse on Friday, where I had Kenyan tea (memory lane, sigh) and then we had Indian food at North Market on Monday just before we started home.

The other photos here in this post were taken on rides through town in Megan’s car, or on the way out of town in Rae’s car. I Love, Love Love Cities… and this one is big enough to make me smile a lot. This next photo was taken of the stret right in front of the Convention Center. Over to the left behind that line of businesses is North Market. That market is enough reason to move to Columbus, I tell you!

With that, I am done with Columbus until next spring. I’m looking forward to that, but I need to get over to Threadbear right now and teach a ZigBagZ class. Such fun.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 1:28 pmand is filed under Knitting, Relationships, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.