This year I had the opportunity to attend TNNA in the USA. TNNA is The National Needlearts Association. It's one of the biggest yarn and needlecraft trade shows in the USA, and is where companies show off their wares to shops and yarn stores. Why was I there? Well, because Lantern Moon (LM) are my distributor in the USA, I went to help them sell Scrumptious, and to take lots of orders for the Autumn-Winter season.
Phew, ok thats the "science bit" over with! Now for the fun description!
So obviously I was there to work... and I did! I helped LM set up their stand and sell, and we had LOTS of business dinners.... those guys are so well connected! I got to go to dinner with Craftsy, attend the Vogue Knitting party, we had dinner with Interweave (which was a complete pleasure), lunch with Annie and her beautiful daughter, Annie always makes me chuckle so much! Really it was awesome, I had to keep pinching myself.
This time I made myself go and talk to people. It can be quite scary to go and chat to people - I always assume no one knows who I am - but apparently people know Fyberspates and Scrumptious! That made me so chuffed! Round the corner from our booth was Bonne Marie Burns. I have followed her designs for years and years, so I felt a bit star struck to meet her, and she was LOVELY. You can see her website here: Chic Knits.
OK, lets have some pictures, huh?
So the LM stand looked wonderful, Sharon and the girls made wonderful bird cages as displays, with felted nests inside, they were awesome:
The LM stand was split over 2 sides of the walkway this was the yarn/scrumptious....
They have had some really sweet patterns commissioned for Scrumptious like this pretty cape with pearls in:
I was so excited to see the British designers really had a good presence this year, someone commented that the British were taking over! :D
Here is Woolly Wormhead on her stand.. her hats looked brilliant.
Then there was Ann Kingstone, she had a couple of designs in Scrumptious .. and a sweater with a very interesting construction:
Ruth (Rock + Purl) also came on the trip with Woolly and Anne , sadly I don't have any photo's of her, but we got a little more time together, and she is ALOT of fun, certainly full of life that girl! Also super excited because she is designing for the next collection :)
Here are Woolly and Anne on Grace's stand. Grace's designs I especially liked. Her use of colour and texture with hand-dyed yarns was excellent. I urge you to check them out here:
Then there was Steph... you might know her Hexipuffs, bu all her designs are so CUTE!
I mean damn.... this is really not so much my thing but now I have seen it, I want to make it so much!
It's the first time I have met Stephanie, and she is as cute as in her videos and such a sweetie :)
And then of course there was this sweetiepie.....
At one point during set-up I felt rather anxious for her, as she was nailing and banging bits of wood together to make her window frames... Yes, you read that right, she made her own window frames for the shop, it looked BRILLIANT, I love the effort she puts into her stands.
And there were baby garments... I don't have photos of those, but boy are they cute!
Here is Ishbel knitted in Scrumptious Lace treacle toffee... :)
Someone brought the most amazing shawl to the stand to show me, and I think we will showcase this in a separate post, as it's stunning, but the only photo I have is Joel being silly in it lol!
I did have a little chance to do a little shopping, on the day after the show, before the flight home. I went for brunch with the girls and ate the most amazing black bean cakes with poached eggs and Jalepeno hollandaise... honest I have to write it here so I don't forget it ever!
Sharon (Lantern Moon) on the left next to Ysolda, and Sarah opposite, and Ravelry's Mary Heather.
Then we went shopping and then we ate ice cream... but it wasn't any ordinary ice cream. This ice cream rocks above all ice cream. It's called Jeni's Ice Cream - you get to try as many flavours as you want... I got the cook book! This is me trying very hard not to laugh, I hate photos...
And finally Sharon and I... I felt sad I had to leave. I never feel like Sharon and I get enough time together. In fact I feel like all the Lantern Moonies are family... Steve, Cathy, Annette and Joel. They are all lovely.
