It's nearly time once again to make the trek to Nashville Tennessee for the TNNA Needlework Market!
I wish it were possible to convey even a portion of the magic and electricity you feel at a trade show! You know what it's like to walk into a needlework store .. well, this is the same thing .. but we shops get to walk into the paradise of a designers 'store'! This Market is held in an Embassy Suites hotel .. that's where the floor/rooms are on the outside walls surrounding an atrium in the middle. So if you stand on the first floor in the middle of that atrium and look up, you'll see all the balconies bedecked with banners of the designers and companies that are attending to show us shops all of their newest designs and wares!
When you get off the elevator onto each show floor, you'll find all of the outside walls and windows with pictures, product and other decorations to entice you into that room.
Each designer/company sets up 'shop' in the first part of their suite, so
when you walk through the door, you see displays and stitched models and all
kinds of other stitching eye candy! They turn their 'bedroom' into their
'warehouse' .. that's where they keep all the product so that when we make our
purchases, they (or their helpers) disappear into that back area, package up our goodies, take our
money and send us cheerfully upon our way ... into the next room.
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You may know by now that I always try to put up a Nashville Sneak Peeks Page, and it's up and live now! But .. I'm also putting a good amount of the 'new' up on my catalog What's New pages. Either way you get to see a 'glimpse' of only SOME of the things we'll be seeing and/or buying and/or bringing back to the shop. I'd love to be able to buy it all in unlimited quantities, but that's a bit impossible. So .. what YOU need to do is this: check out both web sites ... mark down what you'd like me to bring back for you .. and then email me, the shop, at deb@stitchesnthings.com and let us know. Pretty cool knowing you'll have a Personal Shopper just for you at a Needlework Market, huh?! If you don't let me know what to buy, I may not bring that one item you MUST have back with me, or .. I might bring it back, but not enough! Help Me Help You!
Friday is our 'class day', learning new techniques or information. Friday evening, for two incredibly short hours, is when we get to begin shopping .. with those designers who decided to open up early. The actual Market begins at 9am on Saturday and ends at 6pm, then again on Sunday from 9am till 4pm. Exhausting but Invigorating but Exhausting! When it's all over, Monday morning Debbie and I will be furiously trying to cram each box and every bag into my VUE-hicle, and begin the trek back to Michigan and my shop. Then we spend two days of doing nothing but filling your orders, putting the items up on my web catalog (those we didn't have time to do in the evenings at Market or on the way home), and trying to make room in the shop for all the wonderful NEW we brought back with us!! Crazy Fun!!
