Last Tuesday I set out on a road trip to drive from central Jersey to Manchester, New Hampshire. (Thank heavens for the trusty GPS otherwise, I would still be cruising around Yonkers looking for how to get somewhere. At least the trip there was uneventful!)
When I arrived at the hotel, I bumped into everyone at the front desk, as I was stumbling in the door with all my luggage: , , , Tammy, and, and probably more people I’m just forgetting. I went upstairs to my room, which smelled HORRID. They’d put me on a smoking floor and said they couldn’t move me. It was dreadful. The smoke was rolling in under the big crack in the door.
A couple hours later I hit JD’s cafe, the bar/restaraunt where everyone was hanging out. I felt sorry for the waitress because it was busy and they looked under staffed. I wasn’t there 10 minutes before I started hearing stories about people stranded at various airports because of the weather (fog?). Soon after, I was on a road trip with another designer, driving an hour south, to pick up two other people from Boston’s airport because these two ladies got a re-routed flight. (I offered to go because I had the GPS). What a long day! A four hour ride there, three hours of rest, and then back in the car from another few hours. Plus we had to wait around for the flight to come in, but a little detour to Hilton’s hotel lounge solved that problem. 
Wednesday was designer’s day. You can see Drew, Mary Jane, Mary Beth, and I chillin’ out in the back of the room.
(photo grabbed from – which by the way has many more pictures than I have)
A panel of editors from various publications including Interweave Crochet and Crochet! Magazine sat down to explain the thought process behind choosing designs for their specific publication. It was an insight into what excites them, what they were looking for, and more importantly, what they weren’t looking for. Kathleen Sams of Coats and Clark was held up at the airport, but Rita Weiss filled in for her, adding the comment, “I’ll buy it/I bought it because it’s made with Coats and Clark yarn,” everytime it was a Coats design:
(image snagged from – who also has a ton of great photos!)
The second half of the day involved individual workshops. There, I met (who was super cool to talk to!), Jill, Andrea, and many other peope who were very friendly and nice to chit chat with. Kim was doing a schpeal on internet businesses so I figured I’d hang out. Jennifer Hansen did a talk on self-publishing. Her comments on snark had my head bobbing in agreement. Lily Chin did a talk on being in the limelight: the press. Overall, loads of great information were had by all. But by that point, I was ready for a beer. It was a long day! A long, fun day.
