A-movin' and a-shakin'

Today was the first day of the big market (where the convention center opens up its huge space and shop owners and other needlework-related businesspeople wander through miles of booths), and what a day it was. I started off with an 8 am class from Sally Melville on creativity. Even though I'm not a huge fan of her designs, I found her to be an excellent teacher and it was a very fun class.

One of the things that really struck me was her mention of her two kids and how they grew up around knitting (i.e. a positive creative role model) - one is now a professional musician and the other just opened a yarn shop even though she never showed any interest in knitting until the age of 25. She talked about how her kids constantly witnessed her sketching, swatching and ripping (and sketching, swatching and ripping some more) and how great it is for children to be in an environment that fosters creative experimentation and shows them that mistakes are something to be learned from as opposed to something to be avoided at all costs. So, in doing what I'm doing, I'm creating a positive learning environment for the kiddos. I like that idea!

After class I met back up with Margaret and got to have lunch with her, aran goddess Janet Szabo (who has just finished her first volume of cable stitch patterns and gave us a sneak peek - love it!) and Lily Chin. Yeah, I had lunch with Lily Chin today. And let me tell you, she is a hoot! We went to a brew pub across the street from the convention center and were by far the rowdiest bunch in there (this without a drop to drink). I don't even remember what we talked about, but it sure was fun.

We headed back to the market and Margaret and I wandered around, petting lots of yarn. We checked out the little Gardiner Yarn Works corner in the Nature's Palette booth (it looked fantastic) and ran into the lovely ladies of The Yarn Grove who I've talked to many times via e-mail (they carry my patterns) but had never met in person. We stopped to see the original Lacy Cabled Scoop at the Y2Knit booth and chat with Susan & Jill Wolcott. Here we were tempted by the retreat they're doing for people in the knit biz in Tuscany in October 2008. Tuscany! I'm starting to figure out how to work that angle...

Next, we headed over to see our friend Chris de Longpre at the Knitting at Knoon booth. Chris has been famous for awhile for her series of on-line knitting videos, and she's just released a DVD which should be showing up in your LYS very soon. Here we ran into Rae (of Rae's Yarn Boutique), her mom and Lynn H of ColorJoy who is absolutely delightful in person. Chris & Rae were both at Cat Bordhi's retreat with Margaret and me.

Some other sightings - the delightfully Irish Maggi Jackson of MaggiKnits, the back of Pam Allen as she walked out of the Classic Elite booth on our way in (nothing to do with us - she was well out before we were anywhere near in), and Amy Polcyn hanging out by the SWTC booth, which was chock full of her designs (including an incredibly cute one featured in the fashion show last night).

We stopped by the big booth of the extremely talented Janel (editor of Spindlicity), who has the most incredible new yarn line, Chameleon Colorworks. She has this incredible yarn called Evolution that is 100% merino but feels like cotton. It knits like wool and has the memory of wool (and none of the fuzziness of cotton), but it is just amazingly soft. I am seriously in love. She was joined by Cookie A, who was showing off her spectacular sock pattern line. We got to talk to her briefly, but then she had to go back to writing up orders. Go, Cookie!

We then ventured into the Interweave booth, where things got really crazy. I found a preview copy of the Fall '07 Knitscene, in which I have a sock design. Then, I ran into Lisa Shroyer, who's the assistant editor and so nice to finally meet in person (we exchange lots of e-mails). In the meantime, Margaret ran into Melissa Leapman, who introduced herself to me and explained "I write books" to which I responded "Um, yeah, I know who you are!" She was so cute and just very nice. Then Amy Singer and Jillian Moreno happened by. I went over to stalk - I mean talk to - Amy about Sea Socks '08 and how psyched we are that Brenda Dayne's going to be on the boat with us. Then Eunny walked in and started talking to Kathy Zimmerman. At that point, I had to go breathe into a paper bag. There's only so much knitting celebrity I can take all at once!

After we made our escape, we ran back into Janet and I told her about my panicked exit from the scene at Interweave. She laughed and told us about one of her early teaching gigs where she got seated at dinner between Nancy Bush and Sally Melville and pretty much spent the whole time just sitting there, flustered and speechless. It was good to know I'm not the only one who gets freaked out by the knitterati...

I am now back in my room, completely exhausted. Time to watch some mindless TV and do some knitting! I can't believe my four days are nearly up - tomorrow is going to scream by. I've got a class with Teva Durham in the morning and then I'm going to head to the airport early so I can split a cab with Margaret (I spent so much on cabs on Thursday, I feel like I need to cut back now!). I won't get home until after 11 pm, which will be 2 am Eastern. I'm finally almost adjusted to East Coast time, just in time to head back west. Sigh. I know you all feel just so sorry for me. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm so worn out from all that name dropping, I'm going to go put my feet up.