Stiches South April 2015

Stitches South in Nashville was marvelous even though the crochet classes were very basic. The Gaylord Opryland Hotel is an arena sized building with two atriums (atria), one of which has several multi-story buildings inside it. A small river (albeit only a foot deep) encircles an island, and a boat ride gives you a view of the plants and fish. The Cascades entrance has a Chihuly glass sculpture and some beautiful stained glass.

Here's the river and Joyce on her scooter. The hotel was so big that we could not have walked to all the places we needed to be. This was our regular morning ride down past the end of the white building and into the convention center.

This is one corner of a marvelous booth, one of about 400.

This is a silk batt for spinning. Swan Hollow had a 3-booth display of spinning fibers, felt (you can see the bolt of red on the left), and yarns. After I bought the wheel, I went down the row saying, "I'll have 4 ounces of that, 8 ounces of this, 4 of all three of those, etc." It's a good thing I was driving. Yes, I did buy some of the red/yellow top at the back of the booth; the purple, too.

Laura Bryant taught an extraordinary class on color using Josef Albers color theory. None of us will ever think of color that way again.


Jenny King, crochet artist from Australia, taught several classes: Bavarian crochet, Solomon's Knot and another class which I skipped because I was busy buying a spinning wheel.

I also took a marvelous spinning class from Merike Saarniit. At the intro luncheon she told us that even beginning spinners would leave her class with a fully balanced yarn. And, we did!!! I was too busy spinning to get any photos of the class.

In fact, I've been so busy spinning since I bought the wheel that I haven't even made any photos of it.

Stitches South at the Gaylord Opryland was marvelously fun, especially because my friend, Joyce was with me, but it was very expensive, and crochet classes were too few and very basic. I do prefer the CGOA events.