TNNA Travel Report

I just returned from TNNA (The National Needlework Association), held in Columbus, Ohio. TNNA is a trade organization primarily for the needlearts: embroidery, counted cross stitch, knitting and crochet.

Debbie Becker weaves her scarf.

The gathering in Columbus offered shop owners, designers and teachers classes and a trade show. I went to teach two weaving classes: "Weave a Scarf in a Day” on the rigid heddle loom and “Knit One, Weave Too”, a class designed to help yarn shops introduce weaving to their customers.

A proud Amy Swenson shows off her scarf. Amy is a partner in Make 1
Yarn Store located in Calgary,
Alberta Canada. She is also author
of two recently published books
“Not Your Mama’s Crochet” and
“Not your Mama’s Felting”.

Schacht also had a booth where we showed our smaller looms and spinning wheels, including our new Ladybug Spinning Wheel. Terribly exciting for me was the high interest we found in weaving and especially spinning. People seemed to want to learn to weave and spin. Also interesting was how many people had woven in the past and wanted to take it up again. The main catch for shop owners was finding someone who could teach weaving. My pitch of the day is if you are a weaving teacher, offer to teach a class for a yarn store, guild, school, city rec center. It is only through teaching that we can invigorate our craft.

Here’s some news from my days in Columbus:

• Stora Vavboken,a wonderful comprehensive Swedish weaving book, is going to be distributed in the US in English. Favorite Rag Rugs, another Swedish book, will be available in English. Look for both within the year.
  


A rare quiet moment in the Schacht booth.
• Preliminary results from the TNNA survey indicates that spinning is at the top of needleworkers’ lists of what they’d like to learn.
  
• The offerings of natural fibers—soy silk, bamboo, hemp and organic cotton—are developing and promising to be exciting.

Columbus Restaurant review:
Trying out local eateries is one of my great traveling pleasures. Barry and I had a delicious meal with warm hospitality at Barcelona, on the edge of German Town district in Columbus.