Home from Seattle

It is 12:27am on Thursday and I just got in from the airport.  I am starting this while things are fresh in my mind and will complete it in the morning.

The flight home was uneventful.  Our plane from Seattle to Calgary was small-50 passengers.  We had to walk out onto the tarmac to get to the plane-haven't done that in a long time.  The airport in Calgary was very nice.  Lots of places to sit and read or shop or eat.  They even had a Dairy Queen!!  There were no problems on the Calgary to Toronto leg but my bags were the last to come off the plane.  I thought they were never coming.

I just looked back at my blog to read my last post.  Wow, I need to update from Monday and Tuesday as well.

The first workshop after lunch on Monday was Get a Life!  Basically how to balance work and home life.  Wow.  Did he write that for me?  The next session was branding.  Talk about dry.  The speaker read from his notes the whole time.  Definitely not a public speaker.  It was more like a university lecture.  Almost at the end he showed us an example that he had made up.  Wish he had started here and left the other stuff out.  They came up with the name, logo and store design for a yarn shop.  Very interesting but we didn't get to ask questions because he was over time.

Monday night we had dinner at The Edgewater Hotel.  I didn't know this but all the famous people stay here.

Tuesday morning we had two workshops on merchandising the store.  Very interesting and I came away with lots of ideas.  This could get expensive!!  Then we boarded a bus for a yarn crawl-four yarn shops and a dye house.

Seattle was beautiful but there is no way that I could live there with all the rain.  The weather changed on Tuesday and I got a terrible migraine.  Thank goodness for Imitrex and my salt and vinegar chips.  I was good to board the bus.

Yarn shop #1-Tricoter.  One of the most famous yarn shops in the US.  The store is beautiful-the yarn is arranged by colour.

Yarn shop #2-Weaving Works.  Seattle's oldest and largest fibre arts emporium.

Yarn shop #3-Acorn Street Yarn Shop.  I have been friends with the owner, Karen, for many years so it was great to see her store.  It is huge.  The best part of her store is the library ladder.  Beth is very jealous-she wants one for her warehouse.

Yarn shop#4-Fiber Gallery.  Terri Shea author of Selbuvotter.  What?

Norwegian Selbu knitting tradition.  These mittens are amazing!!  What a lot of knitting.

Stop #5-Earthues.  A natural-dye manufacturer.  While there the ladies dyed some wool for us.  This is a display of some of the natural materials used to make dyes.

I treated myself to dinner out at The Cheesecake Factory when we returned.  YUMMY!!

Packing was interesting.  I had a large suitcase and small suitcase knowing that I would be coming home with lots of goodies.  I didn't know how great these goodies would be

• Namaste Hermosa bag in black
• Knit Kit
• many knitting patterns and books
• kit from Classic Elite to knit the Firefly scarf
• set of Addi Lace Clicks-yes you did read that right.  We received trial sets to work out all the kinks before production of the sets to sell
• needle case from Della Q

It is now 8pm on Thursday night.  I have been working on the post all day.  I could sit and write more but I am very tired and need to have a rest.  My couch, knitting and NCAA Basketball are calling my name.