Thursday 19 February 2009

Knit Pros stand at the NEC (CHSI trade show)

Just a very quick post with several photos, as I'm still not completely recovered from a very intense three days working at the CHSI trade show at the NEC.

Amanda (known as Noonie to many) and I had an absolutely fantastic time working on the Knit Pro stand. The Knit Pro team are such a fantastic bunch of people; I really admire them for their innovation, their dedication and also the way in which they treat their workers. Plus I love their sense of humour too!

On the stand with us were 'Uncle' Ashok, who is based in Germany and is to Knit Pros what Jess and Casey are to Ravelry (so you could call him Papa Knit Pro), Shirish (the boss) and his lovely wife Mietu. You know when you meet people for the first time that you're going to really like them? Rarely does it happen that I meet three people in one go that I know I will like and respect, but it happened last Saturday.

Apart from meeting lots of people I've met before, it was great to meet some fellow Ravellers for the first time too, as well as meet people I've been e-mailing about Ravelry day.

The best thing for me though was the huge boost in confidence it gave me; as I've already said on here, last year was a BAD year for me and I was as nervous as anything about being on public display (mainly because my weight has rocketed and I've got more spots than I used to have), but actually it didn't really matter. I love the fact that there are going to be more shops in the UK stocking them, so eventually I will only have a 20 minute drive to get them instead of having to wait several days for them to turn up in the post. I loved being able to use my knowledge too to help people decide which needles would work best for them, based on the range of yarns they stock and their target clients. And I loved showing off the newer products to the magazines too (e.g. the interchangeable tunisian crochet), so that you will all be able to read about them. I've given Elizabeth from Simply Knitting the challenge of coming up with a tunisian crochet pattern; it will be interesting to see what she does with it!

I love KnitPros/Picks needles simply because they are simply the best knitting needles to knit with.

And now for the photos.

Ashok (left, that's Papa Knit Pro) doing some 'extreme' knitting on the display needles. Notice Shirish's amused look at being made to hold some of his own products in his hands!
He looks quite the natural, doesn't he?! (He'll kill me for putting this on here)

Didn't the stand look pretty? I love the poster to the right of Amanda, which you'll no doubt see at a yarn shop near(ish) to you in hopefully the not-too-distant future!

It took ages for the stand to be arranged, and a mere 48 minutes to take it down and pack all away (with a double inventory done by Amanda and me). It will be interesting to see how long it takes next year!

1 comment:

Chrissy said...

ARGH I wish I had known that Knit Pros were going to be at the show, my LYS owner went to the show and she didn't see the stand. If I had known it was going to be there, I could have told her to go find it. Then she would be won over by the gorgeous needles and then I would be able to buy new needles at my knitting group (sobs)

Oh well.