Sunday, January 19, 2014

Hello TNNA!



This month I attended my first trade show as a member of the SweetGeorgia Yarns team! I have never travelled for work before, and this was an exciting learning experience for me!


I went to San Diego this January with my co-workers Teresa and Ginny to The National Needlearts Association winter trade-show. We were there to talk to customers and wholesalers, meet designers, and create new connections with yarn stores across North America.


Travelling was not as crazy as I anticipated. I can be a nervous traveller - I am not afraid of airplanes, and in fact I love car rides, but all the formality and structure of airport security and the tight time constrictions stress me out. Teresa's little boy Matthew was a joy to travel with; for an 11 month old, he was surprisingly quiet. He just wanted to crawl around; having to sit in a lap for long periods of time seemed to be his biggest complaint. And Ginny managed to catch a nap on too.


I had the time on the plane to finish up a few projects - another perk of travelling.


The convention was really interesting but a lot of hard work as well! We set up the booth the day before the convention started. It was so nice to see all our beautiful colours, fibres, and yarns out for display!



Our booth featured our new spring colours, as well as some advances in our yarn bases. We could our retailers what these colours and bases look like in person - it can be difficult to judge colour and texture from a photo or computer screen. I got the chance to meet some of our clients and other links in our network. It was great to finally be able to put a face to some names! I also met some wonderful knitwear designers - I left the convention each night feeling inspired and excited to work on a new project or design.



San Diego was is a huge, beautiful city and I really wish I could go back there as a vacation-er. I would have loved to visit Legoland, the Wild Animal Park, the Chuck Jones Gallery and explored Old Town. We stayed at a really nice hotel, close to the sea-wall and the ocean. The weather was phenomenal - we bathed in sunshine and heat every day instead of Vancouver's drizzly overcast greyness.

Oh yeah, and the food was awesome.



However, nothing beats coming home. I was pretty homesick for my cats and husband by the time we left. We had a short layover in San Francisco on the way home, then it was back home to Vancouver!



Cheers!
- Grace

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