Day 1 -Thursday - travel to TNNA

I was invited to attend the The National Needle Arts Association Fall-Winter 2004 Market by Bobbie the owner of Ewe Knit Kits and Yarn. What is TNNA you might ask...it's where the wholesale and the retail get together and sell and buy yarn and patterns and notions. There are also classes offered and new yarns and patterns shown. It's a fast paced, full 5 days of decisions.

B, L and I left Va Beach at 7:00 a.m., stopped in Hampton to pick up P and off to Columbus we drove. A quick stop for lunch, gas and bathroom and 10 hours later we arrived at the Westin Hotel in Columbus Ohio.

I must mention here that the university was holding graduation ceremonies for 6800 students the same weekend. Hotel rooms were hard to find.

After 30 minutes of haggling with Hotels.com, we made it to our rooms, washed our faces and headed to the Greater Columbus Convention Center a mere 9 blocks away. Glad we drove. Those 9 blocks were about 3 miles.

We had hoped to register but Registration had closed. So we got our bearings, found classrooms, where the Market would be setup and the Food Court.

Then it was off to the (bugles blaring here)THE GREAT WALL OF YARN!!!!!! Yep, a wall dripping with the NEW yarns for the fall. 169 of them. Arranged by color. whites..browns..yellows..purples..oranges..blues...blacks...And on the tables in front of The Great Wall of Yarn more balls and skeins of the same yarn. And we could cut samples off all of them. Fill-in-the-blank books were offered with the name of the yarn and a corresponding number. All you had to do was pick up the scissors and tape and snip and tape to your hearts content. We were like kindergarteners filling up our books with color and texture, oohing and ahhing over this one and that one, cutting snippets for one another ...no pushing or shoving was noticed. We were good fiber books completer.

Hunger soon got the best of us so off to Max and Erma's for dinner and back to the hotel to look at our The Great Wall of Yarn books and dream of the fiber delights to come.