Yarn-a-palooza NYC

Yes, indeedy. The official name is Vogue Knitting Live but since I’m not a knitter, I prefer Yarn-a-palooza :). I thought the DFW Fiber Fest was big but oh my goodness, this was amazing. And Vogue has these shows all over the country. ‘Twas probably a good thing that I didn’t know about it ahead of time and I only had a few hours to explore and Tom was with me to ground me. Twice as big as the one in Dallas; two full floors in the Time’s Square Marriott – the ballrooms and filling up the hallways around them. The shops we had visited that same week in the city all had booths, we saw booths for places that had been on my list of possibles, yarn companies big and small that I recognized and so many more.

One of the first booths we saw was for the Vineyard Marketplace from Texas (see my earlier post on October 25th – Making a Difference). Since Tom hadn’t been with Tina and me when we visited them last Fall, I enjoyed introducing him to their yarn and their mission.

We tracked down the dyers of some yarn that I had acquired earlier in the week from Knitty City. The yarn company’s name is Nooch Fibers (named after their cat) and it’s a husband/wife team. I bought two colors of their yarn; one is a burgundy color called Sorry, Snake and the other is called Sleep Paralysis. I had to buy the latter because, a) it’s purple and b) Sabrina gets this…and that’s another very funny story but not for right now. So, anyway, the folks at KC did not know the back story of the SS moniker. Darn. I was oh-so-curious. However, the Nooch folks were scheduled to be on site at the yarn-a-palooza. That said, we knew we had to talk to them because there is always a story and I wanted it. Anyway, the name comes from an old tv show on Amazon Prime called Peep Show. If I found the right series, it’s kind of an odd couple sort of premise. And if I get the next part right, this phrase was in part of a story where one of the characters who happens to be a snake (the reptile, not a slimy person) gets left behind because he/she wasn’t there when the rest of the posse left somewhere …. My eyes sort of rolled back in my head during the explanation because I don’t watch tv and had never heard of the show, but, now I know. Lots of ifs there. At some point I’ll track down this show so I have a visual.

After talking to them, we walked around while I tried not to succumb to all the yarn calling to me on both sides. Not easy. I just kept reminding myself that there was only so much room in the suitcase. And I had to have my viewing fairly quickly before Tom lost patience. There were martinis calling to us along with oysters in the near future.

My spidey sense had me stop at what was most likely one of the very few crochet-centric booths there: designer Janie Crow from the UK. I bought a scarf pattern from her that fits in with my mandala fixation (and yes, I’m still trying to finish the afghan) except the parts to this scarf are shaped liked lanterns. Hence the name of the pattern: Mystical Lanterns.

Next we happened upon the ladies of Twisted Fiber Art who came from Michigan for this event. They were great fun to talk to and looked like they were enjoying the event…course it was only the first couple of hours into an entire weekend of excitement. Again, Tom wanted a picture of the sign they had posted and one of the ladies graciously agreed to pose. You can see some of their cakes on the table along with a few of the samples they made to show off the yarn. Truly yummy. The cake I brought home is a merino/cashmere blend with a hint of sparkle. It is the unique color way they dyed for the event called Kama and ranges from dark grape in the center to a merlot on the outer edges.

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Our last stop at the event since they were about to kick everyone out for the evening was at the booth of a fiber farm: the Long Island Livestock Company. They raise fiber animals and process their fleece/fiber into rovings, yarn and other products. This might have been Tom’s favorite spot; he had a very long and detailed conversation about, you guessed it, llamas. Raising llamas, llamas vs. alpacas, how many you need; well you get the idea. And no, no llamas for us, although we might go to LI, to visit the farm on our next trip to NYC. There are a couple of Fiber Fairs up that way; one in May at the Hallockville Museum Farm and the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY in October. They both list sheep herding demos on the list of events so that may mean we would get to see herding dogs in action! Yippee. Probably won’t happen this year but maybe next year? Who knows.

Fun times, but it was after 9 and we hadn’t dinner or cocktails yet. So. Into the cold and a brisk walk back to Wayfarer for the above mentioned martinis and oysters. What a great end to the trip!