kyarns: TNNA recap

Barb and I are back from TNNA, our big fall & winter buying show. We flew out to Indianapolis on Friday morning and got there without any problems. I had a hard time picking out my trip knitting, and ended up choosing the Ballet Wrap Cardigan on the cover of Interweave Knits 2005 Winter magazine. I have always loved the sweater, and so I grabbed 6 skeins of Colinette Prism in #77/Dusk.

Travelling always makes me a little tired, and when we got to Chicago we had about a 20 minute walk (or so it seemed) to get to our connecting gate. Did you know that in O'Hare International Airport, you can find a Starbuck's on just about every corner, and sometimes in between? That's okay, I'm a huge fan.

In Indianapolis, we arrived at our hotel just before 3pm. There was a Starbuck's in the lobby, of course. (And another one in the hotel next door.) We had a few hours to kill, so I asked the woman at the front desk if there was any shopping within walking distance. She said there was a mall two blocks away with a Nordstrom's. Yep, I was excited. See the big letters? S-A-L-E.

A few hours, a couple of bags and a pair of shoes later (Clarks was having a 40% off sale - how could I resist?), Barb and I made our way to the convention center to register for the trade show and see the "fashion show". This year there were about 150 garments. The big trends we saw were laceweight mohair sweaters, knitted coats, knitted bags, and lots of DK/Sport weight sweaters.

By Saturday morning we had our attack plan in order. We met with Unique Kolours in their booth before the show, and ordered two of their new yarns. Parisienne is a new laceweight mohair that is wonderfully soft and gorgeous. They have great patterns for this yarn - beautiful sweaters that are figure flattering - not big and ovesized like a lot of Colinette patterns. We also bought Tao, a 100% silk yarn that is really gorgeous. This yarn also has some great patterns also.

By the time the show opened at 10am, Barb and I split up to cover more ground. Barb ordered new colors of Jade Sapphire and Mountain Colors, and then went to look at new books, patterns and notions. I went straight to Koigu - it takes so long to get Koigu that it's important to get that order in first thing. Then I went to see Frog Tree, and I got new colors, new buttons, some cool wooden shawl pins, and several new sweater samples. We usually knit our own samples, but Frog Tree has them available for purchase. We pay for them and the money goes right back to the women in the co-op in Bolivia. Next was Blue Sky Alpacas - they have several new yarns that I fell in love with. Talk about SOFT and luxurious. These should be arriving in the next several weeks.

Barb and I met up and walked the show together for the rest of the day. We got some great new Gita Maria shawl pins - but we won't see those until October or November. We bought a neat new line of knitting and crochet patterns called French Girl Designs. And we are SO excited about the new Lexie Barnes bags that should be arriving next week! We got the Lady B knitting bag and the Flo bag. They are SO cool.

We loved the Mango Moon yarns, and bought 3 different ones: Recycled Silk, Bali Sky Sarong, and Springy Capelli. And we got two great yarns from the Fibre Company in Portland, Maine. Terra is a blend of merino, baby alpaca and silk... and Organik, a beautiful and soft NEW organic blend. We liked this one so much we got all 20 colors!

So Saturday was a very full and tiring day. Not so tiring, though, that i couldn't drag myself back to the Clarks store, where another sale pair of shoes made it into my luggage. Yes, I have a problem.