Trip to Columbus

Last weekend, my friend and employee Ellen Taylor and I drove to the National Needlearts Association convention (a trade show) in Columbus, Ohio.  This one is the summer show, which showcases cold-weather yarns, buttons, needlepoint canvases, and other fiber-arts related materials.  The winter show is in Long Beach, California -- and it has to do mostly with spring-summer goods. 

I always enjoy Columbus -- which I still think is one of the best medium-sized American cities, more than livable, with fascinating neighborhoods and genuinely wonderful examples of reused, rehabilitated buildings.  The Short North is my fave neighborhood -- lots of great galleries and restaurants, good walking, and good people watching.  Also Jeni's Ice Cream which has no equal in the world, I don't think.  Try Lemon Blueberry.  Try anything.  Jeni's also can be found in the Farmer's Market (cool place) near the convention center.  We had supper at my fave Asian Fusion place, called Lemon Grass -- highly recommended.  If I were younger, I'd probably have flirted with our waiter, who was to-die-for sexy.  I'll bet he was a theater major at OSU.

On the floor, there were the usual hugs with friends.  But let me briefly note the presence of intarsia again -- I bet last year that it would fade, but no -- though not picture knits so much as color blending in strips or regions on a garment, with some wonderful uses of variegated yarns.  Both Ellen and I also noticed widespread use of really NEEEEOOON chartreuse -- typically not by itself but dotted and dashed here and there on charcoal, black, brown, etc.  I loved the effect.  One trio of Rowan sweaters featured charcoal gray grounds with long dashes, short dashes, maybe 4-6 stitches in bulky weight yarn,  which I may try to replicate in some kind of coat, though with almost-black eggplant.
There were a LOT of knitted skirts, some crocheted long garments, including dresses.  But I didn't see much that was startlingly new -- just a lot of good designs, solid yarns, perhaps a greater number of indie dyers than before. 

I liked what I saw.  We drove home through torrential rain and  hail, which is not recommended.

svb