American Sewing Guild in Philadelphia
Greetings from hot and steam Philly…your correspondants Judy Neukam and David Coffin arrived by car Thursday afternoon, checked into our hotel, and then made a bee-line for downtown. There, amidst 3 centuries of spectacular architecture, we took in the show “American Splendor” at the Academy of Fine Arts…room after room of breathtaking landscape paintings from Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and other 19th-century masters of the Hudson River school. It was unforgettable!
First thing Friday morning we took in the key-note speakers for the conference: Linda Griepentrog, of Sew News fame, and trend strategist Kathy Lamacusa, who kept us in tears of laughter as Linda shared her struggles with our common nemesis: the Fabric Stash, and Kathy brought us up to date with technological advances in fabric (threads that deliver your daily doses of vitamins, anyone?). She movingly reminded us, with a heartbreaking story from her own life, that “we speak through the creativity we share,” advising us to consider, as we devour the offerings at the conference, “the stories we want to tell, the memories we want to create, and the legacies we want to leave.”
Our booth duties didn’t begin until 1pm, so that morning we returned to downtown to check out the twice-yearly wholesale craft market that filled one enormous hall at the convention center…very impressive; although fiber exhibitors were a tiny percentage of the 1500+ booths; we got lots of good ideas for future quick-to-makes, and found some potential new authors…
We’ll return ASAP with news of the show itself, and with glimpses of the latest product offerings…Stay tuned!
Hurrying back to north Philly, we found
Replies
What a cliff hanger! "Hurrying back to North Philly, we found..........."??? What? What? What? The rest of it sounds so good, you must have something just as good in North Philly. Let us know. rjf
Hi, Judy and David! Sounds as if you're keeping busy and enjoying the conference. I, too, await with bated breath the continued tale of what happened in North Philly...and I'm pretty envious of your trip to the Academy of Fine Arts. When you get back to Connecticut, I'll send you up the Hudson to see Olana.
The Threads office has been very quiet without you, although Friday I enjoyed a wonderful visit from Deepika Prakash, the founder of http://www.PatternReview.com (see our review on the Threads homepage), who was, herself, en route to Philadelphia to spend a day at the ASG conference. I directed her to the booth to meet you both--hope you all connected at some point.
Have a great evening!
Carol
This post is archived.