My First ATHA Biennial

I can't believe it's been a month since I attended my first ATHA Biennial!  Where has the time gone?  I will tell you that getting there was a bit of a challenge.  Katie Lane from Townsend Industries and I boarded our flight from Moline to Detroit, then changed planes in Detroit to Baltimore, and then Baltimore to Lancaster.  What a trip!  We had horrible turbulence on the first two flights, the second one was overbooked and they had to check my carry-on, and then the third flight looked like this:

Yes, that's the pilot, washing the windows.

And here is my seat - my knees are on either side of the pilot's chair, and another passenger is riding shotgun with a steering column in her lap.

Very....um...intimate. 

How about the compass mounted on the windshield? 

I want to see fuzzy dice.

When we finally arrived in Lancaster, our flight was late and my luggage didn't make the hop in Baltimore, so I was suitcase free, and we were already an hour past the end of setup time for our booth.  Fortunately for us, the fantabulous Norma Batastini was in charge and had all of our boxes at the booth and the security guard was aware of our arrival and let us in to set up.  Three cheers for Norma!

As expected, the rugs were exceptional.  Here are some of my favorite rugs - I am crediting them best I can, but if any of you see any mistakes, please let me know at jstamper@beeline-co.com:

"Dad", designed and hooked by Cindy Irwin. 

I attended a three room schoolhouse in Nebraska

from grades 1-6, so this one spoke to me.

This one is called "The Ladies", and I thought I was being so clever

to take the picture WITH the names of the designer and hooker,

and of course, I can't read it.  This is a beautiful rug,

and I love the light background.

This was a fun and spunky rug,

"There's No Place Like Home" by Yvonne Hynes. 

The shoes even glittered!

Absolutely LOVED "Red Haired Woman"

by Churchill McKinney.  Isn't she fabulous!?!

This was the eye candy wall

in front of our booth. 

I felt like every time I looked up

I saw something new.  The reds were fantastic!

I also should admit that I have a major thing for footstools, and there were some I drooled over at the show.

This is the "Square Pocketfull Footstool" by Cindi Gay.  LOVE.

I didn't see a name card on this amazing footstool,

but I love it so much I have to show it anyway. 

My apologies (and appreciation!) to

the designer and hooker of this stool.

The Big 'Un.  This is "Penny Ottoman",

hooked and designed by Lynda Garay. 

It is stunning.  And big.

I'm working on a rug with circles right now...no, wait, I'm LOOKING at a rug with circles and scratching my head because I'm too intimidated by them.  Maybe while I'm in Vermont next week at Green Mountain I will make some headway on that rug.

Here are our booth neighbors, Gail and Deb at RHM.  I get so excited when I get my new issues!

We had three of our amazing distributors vending at the show, and I had dinner with Susan Feller of Ruckman Mill Farm and Martha Reeder of Going Gray (and her sister Liz and brother in law Jerry), and lunch with another distributor, Gene Shepherd.  Terry Dorr, you are on my meal list in Vermont!

Martha and Liz, in a rare moment of quiet in their booth.

Susan Feller works her magic at the Ruckman Mill Farm booth. 

Terry Dorr, selling some of the hombre wool.

The show was just crazy busy, with so many people to meet and things to do.  And the rugs...oh, the rugs.  I wandered into one of Laura Pierce's classes and the portrait rugs people were working on were amazing.  Just a fun get-together of the rug hooking community that of which I am slowly learning.  Names and faces are starting to come together, and I'm starting to recognize people's work without seeing the name.  But no time for hooking while I'm in the booth!  Maybe in Vermont....

Katie and I left the show on Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m., and lo and behold, the airport was shrouded in fog.  Our flight on the tiny plane was delayed by an hour, which made us miss our connecting flight in Baltimore, which put us in airports for the next 14 hours.  Oy.  We finally made it back to the Quad Cities at 11 p.m., happy to be home, but looking forward to the next ATHA Biennial, taking place at Long Beach, CA in 2013!  If you want to support the next Biennial, go to ebay.com and type in ATHA 2013 and look at the items you can buy - I'm loving Jane Olson's needle case!

Fun in Nebraska

Hello all!

I haven't done much hooking lately, as my hooking space is in my basement at home, which currently looks like this:

We are finishing the basement , and there is now an egress window where that dryer vent hose goes through the plywood window, and all the walls and ceiling are down and the mess relatively cleaned up, so there is progress, but my little studio room tucked in the corner that used to look like this:

Is now covered in a layer of dust because the egress window guy came and I didn't shut my door.  All of my lovely wool, which is now filling those cube shelves, is covered in dust as well.  *sigh* 

One of the best things about my job as Marketing Specialist for the Bee Line-Townsend cutters is my chance to travel to hook-ins and shows.  Two weeks ago I was supposed to go to the Autumn Valley Hook-In in Stillwater, Minnesota, but my lovely teen was asked to Homecoming for the first time, so I had to fulfill my role as Annoying Picture Mom.  I certainly did miss seeing everyone in Stillwater, though!

Last weekend I drove to Valley, Nebraska to attend Janice Lee's Eastern Nebraska Hook-In.  It was fun and really informative, as there were terrific presentations throughout the day.  Great talks by Janice about sheared mats, Kathleen Salak's hooked dolls, and Carol Oslage's baskets, all great, but I was really taken by Jan Goos' Halloween pattern:

(Used with permission from www.goosnest.com)

She did this as both a hooked rug and as a wool wall hanging.  It was interesting to see it in both incarnations, and it is so fun and festive!

A rug I stared at a LOT and wish I would've taken a photo of was being hooked by a young woman at the table in front of my booth.  I believe the pattern was called "My Pal" and it was a dog in the middle, which she was hooking in a primitive style and beige and tan wool.  The background was originally drawn with primitive, irregular rectangle shapes in it, but the hooker was hooking the background in large spirals in varying shades of blue, which to me was reminiscient of Van Gogh's "Starry Night".

Picture this without the yellow and white.

The hook-in was a great deal of fun.  Here is the event just as it was opening and people started their rounds around the vendors:



Here is the crowd when Jan Goos started speaking:

Here is a nifty idea for carrying cassettes without damage - this is an old Crystal Light container:

The good times kept rolling when I visited Janice Lee's shop the next day.  It is a really cool place:

It's even better on the inside...

Here's a close-up of that fantastic horse rug on the table - I love the four-leaf clover in the horseshoe in the middle:

And here is the lovely Janice Lee herself, in the middle of her Queendom:

What oh what should I purchase from Janice's candy shop?  When I was at Sauder, I saw all of the amazing Magdelena Briner Eby rugs and Evelyn Lawrence's interpretations of them.  I also bought the book on Magdelena's rugs by Evelyn and Kathy Wright.  So it only made sense that this was the pattern that was to come home with me:

It's called Magdelena's Animal Purse, from Woolley Fox via Janice Lee. 

I can't wait to start it!

This week I'll be traveling to the ATHA Biennial in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  If you're at the show, be sure to come over to the Bee Line - Townsend booth and say hi!