More On Market 2009

More on market 2009

 

Of course classes comprise a small amount of the time that we spend at market. Eight hours a day are spent walking the floor of the convention center looking at yarns and related items and making, what we hope are, smart choices. There are a lot of companies trying to get our attention and convince us that they have something that we can't live without.

 

The trends and fads change. A few years ago the show was full of novelty yarns, new companies were popping up everywhere and their only product was novelty yarns. Most of them are gone, although a couple have managed to survive adding traditional yarns to their lines while cutting novelty. Most of the 'old timers', who jumped onto the novelty yarn band wagon, have dropped their novelties and returned to who they were before. And a few companies who have always had a strong percentage of novelty yarns in their lines still do. Trendsetter and Prism are examples and Feza has joined them. Playing With Yarn has always carried a wide selection of novelties and will continue to but we also balance our inventory with traditional yarns. We basically have maintained the same percentages of each as when we opened.

 

As novelties geared down, hand-paints moved into fill the fad hole. A year ago it seemed that every backyard had a hand-dyer selling their yarns at market. Some were very good and others were not. Some good colors appeared on very nasty yarn. It looks like that has settled down too. A large percentage are gone leaving behind companies that have been around producing hand-dyes for a very long time as well as a few of the new ones. Those left are producing colors in quality fibers.

 

Some of this is the result of our troubled economy but much of it is a natural reduction to match demand. Many of the knitters who started just to knit scarves are on to other hobbies leaving behind long time knitters and those who had started as new knitters but have developed their skills and refined their tastes. These remaining are finding a real mix of gauges, fibers and styles in fibers to choose from. We see everything from fine lace weight to super bulky. There is a huge mix of animal, plant and synthetic fibers both within a category and mixing the categories. There are wonderful traditional wools to rare animal fibers and more plants than you can imagine. There are some very good synthetics. We are rich in the number and quality of selections.

 

I have tried to sort through and pick yarns that fit with yarns that we already have. In some cases, I have had to find replacements for yarns whose companies have either gone out of business or no longer fit our vision. In the majority of cases, I have chosen to enlarge lines that we have had relationships with for a long time. I like working with people who I feel shares a similar vision of the yarn industry and respect for the knitters. For me it is very much the idea of supporting people who I respect, trust and who I feel are honest with me. There are certainly some others who I feel would fit this model but my relationship with another company has been a long one and the nitch that they would fill is already filled.

 

So in the coming months as the new yarns come in you will see many old friends in new colors, some new relatives of yarns that you already know and some new kids on the block. You'll find new patterns from some of your favorite designers and couple of new designers to try out. I have found some new crochet designers. I have found some really cool new designs from my favorites and what I hope is a solid offering in baby to adult garments and in a range of skill levels. I've even found some fun patterns and kits for toys and dolls. Plus I have found an exciting new environmentally friendly dye that you be hearing a lot more about.

 

One of the newer features for us at Market is a 'Sample' opportunity. Vendors have the option of selling selected items on a cash and carry basis for about a hour one evening. It is set up in a room outside the show floor and resembles a bazaar. We are able to purchase products, often offered as kits, so that we can have models ready when the new products arrive or to see if we like the product before we buy them. I know that I am behind on model knitting but I plan to have the items ready ASAP for you to see. A couple of the projects, I plan to ask some of the open knitting people to try them out and knit the models. I want to see what they think of them. The Open Knitting groups have a wide range of experience and interests including crochet so I have a good bunch to test them out.

 

In the evening after the fashion show - this like the Sample It happens after the Show floor closes at 6:00 P.M. we had a wonderful event and I was very proud that Playing With Yarn was listed as a partner participant. A number of companies sponsored an event floor "Save The Fleece. People pledged $1 an inch and knit on scarves. There was a substantial amount collected and many inches knit. The Playing With Yarn team is listed as one of the registered teams. Any one of you may join the shop team of form one of your own. See www.keepthefleece.org
or contact me
for more details on our team. We will have an going scarf in the shop – along with our shawl for Sheila's shawl - so that you can come in and knit a few inches or you can send money to sponsor another knitter.

 

This is a long report and I have long ago finished my Cobb salad and Guinness. We took off ½ hour late and are now over some fluffy clouds somewhere between Columbus and Minneapolis. I still hope to have time for my birthday desert at TGIF before the plane to Duluth takes off. I will be sending emails off the future telling you about products as they come in.

 

 

My 2009 Report from TNNA

This is a long one so be prepared!

Part One Columbus and Classes

I am writing this while sitting in the Columbus, Ohio airport. I have a couple of hours before my flight boards. So while I enjoy my Cobb salad and my large Guinness, I want to put down some of my impressions of TNNA June Market while it is still fresh.

It was a good market. When someone asked me how I felt about it, it took a bit of thinking of a word to describe it. I finally decided that it was a 'comfortable' show. While there were a few new faces, the majority had been around a long time, many much longer than my 10 years. There were fewer vendors and fewer shops. Both companies and shops had gone out of business. But all in all, it didn't look all that different from 10 years ago when TNNA had it's first market in Columbus and I attended as a new shop owner. Before that TNNA met in Chicago and I went as a store employee.

Columbus is a great city and I love being there. It's different from Northern MN. People in the restaurants and hotels call me 'honey' and 'hun' and we don't know each other! This is the ninth year that I have stayed at the Red Roof across from the Convention Center and most of the employees have been there the whole time. Judy at the main desk, has been promoted to a new job but she still is the one who answers the phone when I call. Ruby has taken care of the breakfast and coffee area AND she looks exactly as she did when I first saw her. It is rather like going to summer camp, you know your fellow campers and councilors. People on the street stop you and thank you for coming to Columbus. And you can't get a bad meal anywhere. The food is great. I guess that can all take a lesson in friendliness from Columbus. It's hard for Scandinavians, but we may be able to do it.

My classes were good. The Tutti Opal/Isager company provided those of us who are stockest stores with a class taught by Marianne Isager and a preview of their Fall line. Wait until you see Marianne's new children's book. All the clothes are inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales. Way too cute and you will have to wait until Fall to see the book. But we will do a series of classes knitting wrist warmers based on the pattern's techniques. so that you will be ready for the 'real' thing. My personal triumph was learning to purl with the working yarn in my left hand - actually I was double knitting carrying both yarns in my left hand.

I took Lily Chin's Tips, Tricks and Hints for Crochet - for the third time. I am a slow learner. Actually, I had a crochet problem that I wanted solved and I figured that Lily could help me if anyone could. Before I could ask, Lily gave me the answer. She must have looked around the class and recognized some of us because she changed the class and covered what I needed to know. I now can start my net stitch jacket without having to make a 502 stitch chain for my foundation row. I can add that to my new skill of chainless foundation. If you haven't learned this yet, look for an up coming class on it.

I took another very good class from Lily. She did a very good job of leading our class in interperting fashion trends. We sometimes forget that we are a fashion industry but Lily took us back to our roots and helped us find resources and understand the world of fashion. It turned out to be a fun class of brainstorming and solving puzzles. It was great to be able to follow fashion trends from the early runway introduction through it's path to mass market some years down the road. We were able to see how a fashion detail morphs into different looks.

Ten years ago when I opened Sally Melville's Styles was a new book. I loved it and still do. If you haven't read it or have it, you need to check it out. I believe that this is the best book that Sally has written and it was really great to be in a class with Sally showing us how she manages her yarn collection - some people call it a stash. Sally introduced some very fun and interesting techniques for using your collection. She talked about gauges, how to mix gauges, texture, fibers and colors while using various amounts of individual yarns. She discussed stitch patterns that are friendly for mixing yarns. She told how she over dyes finished sweaters using formulas that she developed by dying her knit swatches before beginning to knit the sweater - remember those swatches that we tell you to knit! We talked about sweater washing and care. and we ended with Sally explaining her technique of using knit stitches as the warp in a weaving technique that allows very precise placing of color and creates a fabric that is very different from the usual knit sweater. I should do another class in this technique, it's been a few years since we did the last one - remind me.

My fifth class involved a old Swedish technique explored in a new way and will be coming out in a new book. Twined knitting has always intrigued me but when done correctly is very putsie. I am not sure that author and our instructor truely understands the technique.

This ends this section of my report. I have had to quit a number of times and I still have a lot more of my 'first impressions' to tell you, but it is time to take two Yorkie girls to agility class.

On vacation

I am in southeastern Ohio with Emma and Lilly at agility camp. We arrived Sunday after driving for three days. I drove while the girls rested in their crates in the back seat. I went throught 2 1/2 books on tape. I started listening to books on tape after an agility trial a few years ago. There is a lending library of books on tape that is spread around the country among agility people. It started after an accident where a tired agility person was killed because of driving home tired. I took out a couped of books after a trial and became hooked on traveling with books playing. I usually get light reading books that I have already read so I can listen but not consintrate. Although I have listened to D Day twice. Still most of my books are mysteries.er fI have recently listened to two books for children that I like very much. The first one is The Penwicks and the second is about the same family.

After we left Columbus we ran into a traffic snarl up and seeing it was miles long, I pulled off of the Interstate and onto rural roads to bypass the accident. It was a serendipity event. We traveled the back roads before hitting another large highway that wound through the hills of southern Ohio and then on to another rural road. The rural road must have been built by a billy goat! Up and down and around it went through absolutely beautiful country. The grading was also done by the goat! When we finally arrived I realized that I hadn't seen a guard rail any where.

But we have arrived in a beautiful piece of property on the top of a hill overlooking rolling hills and valleys. It is very different from home, both are beautiful but very different. And yesterday the work began. This maybe a vacation but it is also very much a working one, at least for the girls and me. We are at Bud and Marsha Houston's Country Dream Agility Camp and Bud is a formidable task master. And I have already learned that my front cross, an elementary agility move, stinks!

Bud is a believer that dogs already know the moves it's just the human who has to be taught. Sine I have taken workshops from Bud, I had already an idea how he works so I wasn't surprised at his methods. I like Bud and have followed what he has written since I started agility. He doesn't pull punches with people but he is a friend to the dog.

Lilly says that she has to go out so I will continue later.

There is always something to do!

Slowly, things are getting back to normal. I am even catch up.
Last week the girls started back to Obedience classes. They seemed ready to get back and worked really hard. Jossie is in her second, or is it her third, session of Intermediate. And she stepped out on the floor and started doing things that she just didn't get when we were last out there. She just needed to hatch the ideas. Winnie and Lilly are in Novice and while Bo takes Winnie, I take Lilly. Lilly did so well. She is nervous about new things and changes. But she knows most of the dogs in her class and for the first time, she wasn't upset with the new dogs. She even dropped to downs with strange dogs around her. Sometimes it is the little things that mean the most. This was a first for her. She was happy and wanted to play and work. Winnie is doing better too. Bo is new at this and after sitting on the side lines for years, he is finding it different to be in the ring. It looks so easy from the side lines. Emma was thrilled to be back and when we heeled by Dan Herald - our instructor - he said, that she was doing a lot better and finally seems to get it. I can tell the difference just walking with her, The leash feels different when they are in the correct place moving with you. We are doing some retraining of a couple of things that she is doing wrong. We got some help at the Clicker Expo with a couple of learning methods that we are working on.

How does this translate to knitting? Actually very closely. When someone starts the whole process, of holding needles and yarn, is difficult. And to get everything to move smoothly and be comfortable takes time and practice. Sometimes having someone show you how to hold your yarn in just a different way opens a whole new book for you. Just as different breeds of dogs work differently, and different sizes of dogs need to be trained differently, knitters don't all work the same. There are as many different ways to hold needles, yarn and move that yarn as there are knitters. But when it all works for you, you feel it. you don't need to look down, the needles and yarn just feels different and you know it.

But in dog training and in knitting, it doesn't happen overnight. It is a matter of practice and trying new things. It is keeping an open mind and trying new things. And it is a matter of listening to others and reading and trying out what works for you. There is no right way for everyone. And the only one who can decide for us, is us! Everyone if different and that is an okay thing.

We're back!

Emma and I flew home on Thursday and it felt good to get home. Bo and the younger Yorkies did a great job of carrying on at the shop and home. There wasn't any more snow than when we left, but it had been cold. We came home at warmer temperatures, but the deep freeze is back. There is a bit of ice on the Lake between us and the Island. There are even some ice fishermen out there. But give us a good wind and the ice will go to WI.

Now I have a bunch to get done. I bought some new roving from Marie Glaesemann, a local shepherdess. And I bought a couple of complete fleece from her. Carolyn Bergman and I are talking about offering an advanced spinning class, besides her beginner's class. A class that will include wool preparation. I just heard that the group that I work with will not be sponsoring the local Women's Expo this year. So that weekend is free and it may become the wool preparation and advanced spinning weekend. It would be fun to have enough time for some dying too. Maybe even some Ukrainian Egg dying, just for fun.

But anyway, all is well on this piece of the North Shore on Lake Superior in Minnesota.

A vacation of sorts

Emma and I are in Austin, TX. We flew down to attend the Clicker Expo and to visit our youngest daughter and her family. My first trip to Texas. it is quite wam here although people here think that it is on the cool side. And in Austin, it is very dry. My daughter and her family are buying water. It makes you think twice about flushing or having a bath. We live with the luxury of knowing that we have that huge lake in our front yard. And yet, we also live with the knowledge that if enough people drill wells along our shore of Lake Superior, we all will have salt water in our wells, the concequence of living on the shore of an ancient lake. While we worry about oil to power our society, our biggest, long term concern should be having enough water. We can live without oil, we can not live without water.

Yesterday, we celebrated the country beginning a new phase with a new president. In our family, there was a true and great celebration. We campaigned and embraced Barack Obama and look forward to this new administration. We have great hopes for what he will bring to our world. But as we talked and thought about what all this means and is going to mean, it bought me back to earlier elections and administrations. I was too young to vote for JFK but not to young to hear and take not only to heart but to embrace as part of my personal philosophy, his call to service and to accept responsibility for our country. I was old enough to vote for LBJ and as an idealist, young Hippy - in my day being a Hippy had a different meaning that it did for those who came just a few years later - I didn't always appreciate LBJ and was known to march and carry signs telling the governement what I thought was wrong with it.

When I voted for LBJ and for others in elections after, it wasn't so much voting for as it was against voting against their opponate. And in this election, I would have been just as happy voting for Hilery, at the time. But now I have a whole different feeling about Obama. I feel, now, that he is just what we as a country needs. We need someone who will take us back to what American politics should be about and even more so to someone who will call American citizens back to taking responsibility for their government. It is not just that bunch in Washington who does stuff - it is US. We, you and I and all of our neighbors who are the governement and we need to keep those people in Washington remembering that.

My geneneration grew up on stories of the Great Depression, of Pearl Harbor, of Hitler. We remember these strange men in uniform coming home to kiss our moms and we were told that this was daddy. We vaguely remembered him because he had been gone to war most of our early life. Often daddy went to school until he got a degree and a job, often to be called back then to another war. But at home and in school and in Sunday school, we heard that it was our job to vote and tell our government when it is right and when it was wrong. The people of Germany didn't do that and that is why Hitler could take over. A pretty simplistic explination but we were raised on it. It is no wonder that we became the generation that marched with leaders like Martin Luther King or against war. We were taught that this was our responsibility as citizens. It was not easy. Often our parents were angry with us, but what did they expect? They taught us that this was our duty.

Some where along the way, we as a people lost the idea of being responsible for what goes on in Washington. Oh, yes some of us held on to that belief and taught our kids that they are responsible but not enough or whole heartily. And we lost the Depression Generation to remind us what can happen if we become irresponsible. And we have a great big mess. And I think that have someone now who can call us back to remembering that a Democratic Republic can only function when all of it's citizens work together and politics are not about their team only winning or losing. Our government is not about political parties, it is about people working together for the common cause.

Don't know if anyone else is interested in my rambling but it helps me to work it out in print. And it is a bummer working on my laptop with the missing r key!

New Year's Resolution - drop in here at least once a week!

I just sent out a newsletter to everyone. In the process of writing it, I decided that this is a better place to write some of the things that I was thinking. As one of my favorite dog trainer, Bud Huston, does with his blogg, I think that this is the place for some of my musing.

In these days of internet for shopping and communicating, people often wonder what is the advantage of shopping in small, local specialty shops? After all, you can visit a local shop, check out a product if you really want to see it, and order it on line.

Before Christmas, I ordered what I thought was an I-pod. Imagine my surprise when a knock off version arrived in our mail. The company had clearly described the item and had photos that looked just like the Apple product. Now I am trying to return it. the return policy says that I have to pay the return postage and a 15% restocking fee, - after they okay the return. The okay, I am still working on. The company gets my emails but answers all sorts of unasked questions or tells me to be patient the holiday mail was busy and my order will arrive. I feel foolish and cheated by it all. And in the meantime, I went to Target and bought a real I-Pod Nano. I was able to ask questions and got help from the staff at Target. Since I am an I-Pod beginner, I will need help!

I sell yarn and patterns to people who don't live in Knife River. I ship that yarn and those patterns to them. Some time I only know the people through corresponding by email, other times we have talked on the telephone. But there is a reason that I don't have a 'market basket' on the website. I want to 'talk' to the people who are buying from us. I want people to receive the product that will best do the job that they want it to do. And I want them to know that if they need help, I am here to help them.

I have talked people through patterns and techniques over the phone. I remember one time when I scanned the collar of a model and counted the stitches of the collar. Then I emailed the picture and numbers to a customer who had traveled to her family home for Christmas, bringing her unfinished Christmas present with her. She just forgot the pattern at home and needed the graph and stitch count to finish it. I didn't have another copy of the pattern in stock but I had the model. With the numbers and picture of the scanned collar, she was able to finish it in time to wrap it up have it under the tree.

I sometimes tell a customer, You wouldn't like it. It isn't your style." How do I know that and feel comfortable telling the customer that? Because I know that customer and I know what she or he likes. I will also call someone and tell them that I just got a pattern or a yarn in that I know that they will like and I have set it aside for them to look at. That's the advantage of shopping somewhere where people know you. It is why I shop at many of the stores that I go to. I think that it is important - hopefully others do too. In these crazy, difficult times, it is even more important. We all need each other. Small, independent, specialty stores can't offer great sale prices and stay in business but we can offer you great service - it goes with sale.