Well another successful event has passed. Over 3,000 people came through the doors to shop at the Market Place, take classes, watch the fashion shows and take advantage of hob knobbing with other needle artists. The weather held up for us which was great. Saturday was better than Sunday. The wind was brutal on Sunday. The event was held at the Hilton Hotel and I walked from 42nd Street and 8th Avenue from the bus station to 52nd Street and 6th Avenue and my face was cold. But no snow and that was great.
There was a nice variety of vendors to choose from and a lot of anxious shoppers to see what they could buy for new projects or add to their stash of goodies. The fashion shows were fabulous. Trendsetters Yarns included designs with mitered squares and the colors and styles made you want to go get the yarn and start making one of them. I loved the details of the garments shown at the Vogue's fashion show. And guess what! Vogue is coming out with a Crochet Magazine this spring and they featured two items from the magazine. Look at the pictures below. The dress has great details
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With the other fashion shows that I got a chance to see, they had some beautiful items. I loved the sweaters, jackets and tops that the front was sort of plain but the back had the surprise of a beautiful inlay of design, so it made the garment pop. And the spring colors were great. There were other fashion shows that kept all eyes peered as to what was next.As with any event they get better and better in time. This is only Vogue's second event and it went smoother than last year. In fact too smooth for me because last year as a volunteer I was running around here there and everywhere and I liked that. I had more time this year to walk around the Market Place and see the fashion shows which was nice also.
This year I helped pack things up from the Market Place at day end on Sunday. We were running around and I enjoyed that. Ok call me crazy but it was fun to me. It was also sad to see all of the vendors packing up since the Market Place was not open on Monday. Classes were held all day focused on learning hopefully something new or improving on what you have some knowledge about.
There were a couple of new additions to this event. One was a yarn tasting section. Yes, you could go from table to table and there were balls of yarn from the different vendors and you could try them out to see if you liked working with them. I know that was one feature I liked when I went to the Lion Brand store in New York. They had a section against the wall when you came in where you could try their different yarns to get a taste and feel of how it would be to work with them. I think it is great because there is nothing worse (well there might be a few worse things) to buy yarn and start a project and say I don't like working with this yarn. So that was a great feature. And the yarn balls were in pottery bowls that if you wanted to purchase any of them the business information was on the bottom of each bowl. There were some beautiful pottery bowls. The other addition was more fashion shows, 12 in fact for the two days. What an array of new patterns to choose from. The ones I got to see were packed with excited people that were anxious to see what the designers came out with this year. It was an inspiration to want to knit more, learn more and to be able to do some of those more intricate designs.
People always think that there is nothing for the novice knitter in the VogueKnitting magazine. Well Vogue does from time to time have easier patterns and they showed a couple on the runway. So don't scratch off the VogueKnittng magazine all together if you are a beginner knitter. Look at it as a future endeavor and something to work towards. Look at the magazine and pick out a couple of patterns that you would like to work towards making. Put them on your bucket list.
There was also a panel I enjoyed of ones that are in the business. This was to help those that are interested in starting a business in the knitting arena. For me it was a reality check as to the fantasy of what you would like to do and the reality of what it is in real life. It was the reality of commitment, dedication, money needed, and sacrifices to be made. Yes, these are things that most businesses require as a check-off list of realities. But we still live in our dream worlds and we sometimes rush into doing something without, as they continued to point out, doing our needed research so as not to have to go through the pitfalls that could be avoided. I know it got me thinking since that was something I wanted to do. And one brought out that there is nothing wrong with having a regular 9 to 5 job and doing a side business.I had fun and of course I always enjoy meeting other volunteers as we
talk about what we are making and what was purchased from the market. For us volunteers, a special added treat was receiving Kaffe Fassett & Brandon Mably's new book on color. What beautiful designs are featured in that book. I think I will put one of those designs on my bucket list.If you got to attend then I hope you enjoyed yourself either taking a class, shopping at the market place, or just watching fashion all around you to inspire you to enjoy your needleart even more.
