I’m going to the summer TNNA (the national needlearts association) wholesale show in Columbus … this week!  I’ve been madly preparing for my first tradeshow for more than a month, while also madly tending to orders and life in general.  I’m in the slightly panic stricken stage, while recognizing that I’m at the 11th hour, so it’s too late for new things.  It’s time to get things packed up and make sure I don’t forget anything.

When I first starting writing knitting patterns, I learned about TNNA’s summer show (focused on knitting and yarn) and really really wanted to be a part of the fun.  And here we go!

I’ll be in booth 152, with Deep South Fibers (my wholesale distributor for patterns), but will also be showing Phydeaux yarn.

I have several patterns that will be available for preorder through Deep South, including the Asterisque Shawlette (below).

And I will have skeins of all Phydeaux yarn, including Phydeaux Caresse (new line!).  Best of all, in many new semisolid colourways.

If you’re going to TNNA, please stop by Booth 152 at the Columbus Convention Center!  The marketplace is open next Saturday through Monday.  I’ll be the one in a Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream haze of happiness.  I can’t wait to meet you!

If you sell anything online or in person – or dream about doing so – you’ve probably heard a lot about “marketing” and “target market” and “niche market.”

And if you sell on Etsy.com, you probably really wish you knew who your target market is!

If you’d like to learn how to find your target market, I wrote an article for Etsy last week about how to do just that.

With a worksheet!

But based on the questions I’ve answered since, I want to go indepth.  And thought the best way to do that is via a PDF download.

Which isn’t ready yet.

If you’d like to learn a little more about finding your target market, particularly about email marketing/developing an email list, please sign up for the PDF using the link below (which will add your email to my “Biz Knits” mailing list – how to knit a successful business).  I’ll email the download link to you as soon as the PDF is ready.

Sign up here for the PDF

Hope you read and enjoy the article – share your own experience or questions in the comments below!

“Joie” is a new, limited edition, and super special yarn at Phydeaux Designs.

Two plies of 55/45 Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) wool/silk, Joie has amazing sheen and drape.

Not quite fingering weight, while heavier than laceweight, a 3.5 oz/100gr skein has 675 yards – perfect for an extra room shawl (how about Soleil?).

My stock of Joie is limited – I’m using my final skeins to dye one of a kind (OOAK) skeins, available via preorder.  The BFL loves color – talk about vivid and rich – so perfect for the colors (more than 20 per skein!) I use in Phydeaux’s OOAK skeins!

Preorders are open now – orders will ship during the first week of May.  I hope you’ll take advantage of this – an amazing yarn in a colorway unique to you and you alone!

I chose the house I’m now living in largely for its beauty – talk about a fairy tale forest – knowing I would need a secluded spot to lick my wounds and heal when Mom passed away (having no idea it would happen so quickly).

I definitely made the right decision …

My mom, Joanne Lavell, went home to be with the Lord this last Monday. She fought a valant war against her cancer, but in the end, there were no more effective weapons to continue the battle. She entered home hospice just four or five weeks ago.

I was a lucky, lucky girl to be born to my two parents. And to have known my mom, my dearest and longest friend. We laughed and cried together, shared books and movies and music and clothes. She knew what I was feeling before I did, and I knew what she was thinking from across the miles. I had the best mom possible for nearly 50 years, and I’m so very grateful.

We’re so glad that the pain and horror of her cancer is no more. And we’re so very glad that Mom is no longer suffering. And we’re so immensely heartbroken that we don’t really yet know how to be sad.  But that will come soon enough.

To my mom, lover of kitties, chocolate, cheese, old time gospel music, lace shawls, purses, pot pies, red velvet cake, project runway, bath and body works, word search puzzles, reading, shopping, her family … I miss and love you more than words can express.

L. Joanne Lavell – 1940-2013