TNNA is a trade show which is held in four locations around the country, and the nearest to me is the summer show in Columbus Ohio. It is primarily aimed at owners of local yarn shops and it is the place where they go to see what is coming out next season, to discover new lines and products, and to get a taste of general trends and forecasts. PLUS this is a place where some of the very top designers and teachers and authors are brought together for top notch classes. Shop owners are often tied to the premises, so TNNA has created a really well organized event to include education, networking, shopping ... all of the best business connections rolled into one week.
Wool2Dye4 is going as an adjunct to another company, Knitcellaneous. We are introducing a line of kits which Knitcellaneous will carry for us. There are 3 kits, each with a skein of yarn, 12 packets of Kool Aid (yes...), dye instructions, and a pattern. The kits are intended to be sold by the local yarn shops to attendees to the Try It/Dye It workshops. Workshop attendees may choose from the sock pattern, or wrist warmers or neck warmer.
So, we will be hanging around the Knitcellaneous booth for a few days. And, Sarah, my most able Assistant, is giving two presentations on Friday on how to throw a dye party.
I will be trolling the vendor floor, looking for familiar faces and a few new ones as well. Hope to meet the Ravelry folks, for example, and one of my dyers for UptownStitches.com is attending. We actually met a couple of years ago at a convention for owners of those pesky antique circular sock machines. She is multitalented, this gal! Handwerks, her company name.
Can't wait. I need a little break, and seeing friends and learning about what is happening for the buying public is valuable news for me as my customers are a step closer to the end user than I am. This type of meeting broadens my perspective of the market, and I make business decisions based on what I can pick up from every source available to me. Plus, there will be lots of yarn fondling going on, meets and eats with some good friends, and a welcome change of pace. I can feel the shoulders start to loosen up a bit as I think of it!
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