Ahhhh, Columbus

Some days
Originally uploaded by norvegal

The much-twittered-about TNNA was a great success. After hours, the Hyatt lobby took on the look of a summer camp with pajama-clad knitters flopped on every chair, chatting and giggling and taking pictures and Twittering until the early hours of the morning.

I have learned the hard way that the later you stay up at these events, the weirder and potentially more unsettling the conversation can become. You tend to wake up the next morning thinking things like, "Did everybody realize I was being ironic when I said I hated all knitters??!" or, "Was she really being ironic when she said I was stupid and obsolete?" Either way, it can unsettle you, especially if you have to mingle among those very same people the following day.

Better to take a bubble bath and turn in early.

In parallel to the summer camp side of things we had some true, serious, well-contemplated commerce taking place on the show floor. Yarn stores were buying. They weren't just stocking more from existing vendors, they were picking up new ones, investing in entirely new companies and lines. And that's a very, very good sign that our ecosystem is on its way to recovery.

When not connecting and reconnecting with a slew of smart, lovely, hard-working people who are trying to make a living as shop owners, designers, yarn company owners, and even publishers, I consumed far too much Jeni's Ice Cream, played barefoot in a big splashy fountain, and watched a gorgeous blue heron slowly wander along the banks of this occasionally septic river in search of fish.

All in all a good trip, but I'm mighty glad to be home.