What I saw at Market, by the Booth Bimbo

This morning I have a report straight from the TNNA show from Joanne C., who graciously agreed to tell us what she saw there as a guest blogger. Now, here's Joanne--

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In the interest of full disclosure, I had always, always, always (you get the picture) wanted to go to Market. Or for at least 20 years when the summer market used to be in Chicago, where I live, and the shop owners always said, we’ll take you, and I never got to go. So when my very good friend Elizabeth bought “Needlepoint Now” six months ago and asked if I’d help her staff her booth during her first-ever Market, I spent about 10 seconds thinking about it and then said, “are you KIDDING? I’d love to go!” The only bad part was that the Booth Queen called me the Booth Bimbo, even though I referred to myself as the Booth Minion J.

I can’t judge how much space this trade show takes up, but it’s a lot. Hundreds of thousands of square feet – the aisles started their numbering at 100 and ended at 1700. I’m not going to say much about the knitting people except they have better sweaters than we do. Knitting is very much an international industry and there were vendors there from Britain, Australia, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, the US, Canada, Japan, etc, ranging from vendors with 15 booths to those who are more “cottage industry” with one. I really didn’t go over to the knitting side because I was afraid I’d be sucked in again and my hand surgeon would refuse me another cortisone injection to fix an acute tendonitis attack caused by knitting.

Besides, I was too busy looking at needlepoint, cause it was all over. I had more than enough time to walk around when I wasn’t in the booth, but I kept gravitating back to the same few booths. Melissa Shirley is my favorite painted canvas designer and I couldn’t stop going to look at the beautiful things she had displayed. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to meet her and act all “fan girlish” but she wasn’t there due to a family commitment. Her work was unbelievable and it was a privilege to see it all in one place to see her range. A lot of her new things are on her website, including some great new flower purses (the 1306 series) that could also be pillows, and a big gorgeous black crane (number 1288) that was partially stitched, and a HUGE Santa that must have been 4 feet tall, he had a really cute face. The ladies in the Melissa Shirley booth were wonderful to talk with and I’m sure I drove them nuts with my “visits.”
http://www.melissashirleydesigns.com//gallery/?bsn=1

Jane had asked me to look at three particular designers – Leigh, Mindy, and SharonG. I am not a huge fan of Asian pieces so I didn’t really know what to look for, but there were some gorgeous, gorgeous geishas, showgirls, great pumpkins, and my favorites, the Guadalajara flowers. These were big, abstract, boldly colored flowers on contrasting brightly colored canvases.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/ImgIdx01.html

The beautiful things on Sharon G’s website looked even more beautiful in person – the “horses behinds” she’s got in Christmas, abstract, and floral themes are adorable, I’m looking forward to seeing these stitched. She’s also got some new florals with abstract flowers and striped backgrounds that taper down from being three threads wide, then two, then one, then scattered, just dying to have a big fancy embellished flower.
http://sharongneedlepointdesigner.blogspot.com/2009/06/ct35-is-newer-canvas-that-now-has.html

I loved Mindy’s canvases. My friend Elizabeth lives in Eugene, Oregon, so I’ve been in Mindy’s shop several times and seen a lot of her work, but she had a lot that I hadn’t seen since my last trip there in April, including her signature beautifully painted canvases designed to go in Stirling bags. She showed a lot of canvases with mixed media trims – resin buttons with contrasting faces, wooden buttons, lace trims, ribbon trims, funky spherical balls on funkier stockings, buttons as tree toppers on great Halloween and Christmas trees, and a great collection of Halloween canvases that I don’t remember seeing before – she’s painted a lot of plaid and it was fabulous. Oh, and the purses! Mindy’s done great purses for years but she had some new shapes. I think I have to have the round one….
http://www.mindysneedlepoint.com/new_default.htm

[Jane adds, "Here is the Stirling leather goods website. If you click on Designer Links you'll see two Mindy abstracts that fit the purses."]
http://www.stirlingcases.com/products.php

The trend I picked up on was PINK – everyone had something pink. Lani had some gorgeous, gorgeous pink canvases – abstract patterns with sea shells in the center dying for light stitches, Ruth Schmuff had great pink ornaments, there was a beautiful pink stitched and beaded Melissa Shirley purse in her booth, Mindy had pink, Julia had pink, you get the picture. I love pink, so maybe I was just attuned to it. Purses were also really popular, everyone is showing purses.

[Here is Lani's pink rose pillow and a new Melissa Shirley animal canvas--a chameleon. The second link below is the pink purse Joanne loved.]
http://www.tistheseason.org/blog/2009/06/columbus-market-day-1.html

http://www.melissashirleydesigns.com/galcol/index.cgi?index=1245457247_13532&col=4

[Ruth Schmuff's pink ornaments are here, about the middle of the page.]
http://www.bedeckedandbeadazzled.com/whatsNew.php

[Lani's model page shows off glorious stitched examples of her work.]
http://www.lanienterprises.com/finished_models_imgs.html

This experience made me realize how hard our shop owners work for us – they spend money on travel, lodging, food, and registration to walk around for three days, looking at everything, talking to designers, taking notes, deciding how to best spend their allocated funds on things they think will please us. They have to buy for a whole range of customers whose tastes range from the funkiest new painted canvas to little Christmas ornaments to canvases with pre-stitched centers and canvases that zip into eye glass cases. In talking to them, I realized they can’t just buy what they like, cause if you don’t have what your customers want, they’ll go elsewhere.

I met or was reintroduced to a bunch of fascinating people, all of whom loved to talk about needlepoint as much as I do. Including Amy Bunger and Robin and Jill from her shop, and Kelly Clark (who is just as nice as you’d think she is – she remembered my name when I went back to talk to her the day after I met her, and this was after she must have met 15 million people, and her work was spectacular – the new barnyard animals were adorable!! ), and Anne who is the genius behind Gloriana (who invited us for a road trip!), and Liz from DMC who came over to show us the new “Memory Thread”, very cool, and Ada, who is the designer behind Eye Candy (distributed by Ruth Schmuff), Ada uses color soooo well, and Cathe Ray who owns Needle in a Haystack, and Wendy Harwood who owns Aristeia in California, and Cynthia Thomas from Houston who does extraordinary stitch guides and had the best job at Market cause she got to go from booth to booth, talking to designers about doing stitch guides for them.

[Here are the Kelly Clark barnyard animal canvases along with her other new pieces.]
http://www.kellyclarkneedlepoint.com/new

[Here is the DMC Memory Thread.]
http://www.dmc.com/majic/pageServer/0t010001kd/en_GB/Desire.html

I also got to take off my “Needlepoint Now” hat and put on my “Seminar Faculty Committee for ANG” hat – I talked to a lot of people about plans for Columbus in 2010 and San Antonio in 2011. All in all, I had a great weekend, and if you ever get the chance to go to Market, all I can say is, GO! Thanks for inviting me, Elizabeth – I’m ready to be the Booth Minion again anytime!

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Thanks, Joanne. You are the ideal booth babe reporter and we do appreciate hearing all about the newest needlepoint items that will tempt us in the months to come.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow