We're back and in Market Hell....

Yes, it looks like Nashville Market exploded inside Salty Yarns...but let's start back at the beginning.  We arrived back home from Nashville Market on Tuesday around 4:30p.m.  I was so exhausted I went home and took a nap.  But by 8:30 p.m. I was up and ready to stitch.  I was very disappointed that I got very little stitching in while in Nashville.  As you know I had grand ideas about all the stitching I was going to do, but in reality I got nothing done because I spent all my time shopping for the store or pricing and putting in inventory what we purchased that day.  Sara also brought her computer and her label maker so we were both entering inventory (thank God for the cloud) and printing tickets, but I was still up until 1:30a.m. and then back up around 5:00 a.m. to continue until it was time to shop again.  I withstood the pace Friday night when we shopped for the 3 full hours (so many were open Friday night unlike years past).  Then Saturday we went the whole day from 9 a.m. until around 5 p.m. (I was dragging my big behind down the aisles I can tell you by 5 p.m.) and again ticketing and entering inventory until the wee hours.  And then Sunday we started at 9 a.m., but I couldn't keep the pace so after lunch I went up to the room to continue labeling and entering inventory.  Sara pressed on until the show closed around 4 p.m.  For the first time ever, we were so busy in the room we missed dinner on Saturday night and lunch a couple of days.  I'm too old for this crap.  But it was fun seeing the new pieces and projects and it was a good show.  We found many things which excited us and of course, my Must Have projects which beckoned me nightly but I just  get to it as the pricing of merchandise was so necessary before we arrived home.  It was also great seeing the designers.  We had dinner Thursday night with Ann and Pat from R & R Reproductions and Beth from Heartstring Samplery, who will be teaching at the Jamboree in October, so that gave us a fun start to the activities.  Ann and Pat always have tips, etc. to give us so it's not only fun, but helpful.  They also always have a spot on their sofa for me to sit down during the market...thanks Ladies, much appreciated.  They even put a sign stating that it's Sally's seat but then somegne had the audacity to steal the sign.  On Saturday,  I decided to move things along faster by doing some of the buying on my own.  First room, Stacy Nash......love the new elephant, Humphrey and Henrietta, the chicken...too cute.  I'm so far behind on the series it's embarrassing, but I'll get there sooner rather than later.  With me it's not about the stitching, but it's the finishing.  I have had Clementine done since last fall, just haven't put it together as well as Whittaker, the snowman who was finished right after Christmas, but the finishing is holding that model up.  But I'm ever hopeful.  We also picked up her "Handful of Posies" pin disk kit.  In fact, we have had great luck so far picking up some of the exclusives and limited editions.  We hit La D Da first since she had a limited number of her exclusive scissor block...and we were amazed she had enough for us to get 10 of them.  So that was exciting.  It's so difficult to see some of the exclusives before Nashville and then get here and it's impossible to get any.  But that has not been the case so far, but today is another day and I'm sure there will be something sold out.  Anyway, we also got several of the waxers from Stacy...oh, my they are spectacular.    Anyway, after breaking the bank in that room I joined Sara and said perhaps it was better if I wasn't left along to shop as I tend to over indulge.  Although get Sara in Picture Plus or R & R Reproductions and she over indulges in fabric every time.  But since I didn't have to ticket the fabric by the end of the weekend I didn't even care.  Anyway, after getting home I took Wednesday and Thursday as me days and just stitched.  I did get Hands on Design's, "Oh Say Can You See" finished (well the stitching not the finishing) and I finished one of the rabbit stand up's (again the stitching not the finishing,) and the knitting project, which I was able to work on in the car. was the one thing that I really worked on and managed to get 154 rows (82 stitched per row) done before getting home.  The first night in Nashville before we shopped, we worked on our class project, a Lauren Sauer project, and I got a pocket stitched on, looks a little wonky so I'm taking it back off and redoing it.  I left the 3 dimensional pockets home (by mistake) and got bored before putting the other pocket on.  Sara had to finish some stitching before she started on her pockets, and left my room with the stitched pocket sitting in the lid of her ice bucket.  I told her I didn't think that was a good idea and she said it would be fine, she didn't want to put it in her stitching bag because she had already ironed it.  She left, called me in about 5 minutes when she was back in her room and informed me I was correct in telling her it wasn't safe, because between my room, the ice machine and her room she had lost the stitched pocket.  She retraced her steps several times and it was missing.  I told her we would ask tomorrow if anyone had found it and turned it in because I couldn't imagine what anyone would do with just the pocket.  On Sunday, she stopped by Yarn Tree and asked if anyone had turned it in and unbelievably there it was.  So the lesson here is do as your mother says!  Thanks to whichever stitcher found and turned it in and to Yarn Tree for their efforts in trying to find who lost it.  We left the hotel on Monday and proceeded home, stopping overnight and Tuesday here we were.  Yesterday, Friday, I arrived with the loaded van back at the shop.  So Sara spent the day putting new stuff out while I finished pricing a couple of bags which still were not in inventory or ticketed.  Today will be a day of  trying to get the rest of the stuff out so we can start to play with it.  We also need to thank Judy and Elaine who held down the fort while we shopped.  It's always good to know the shop is being cared for when we are away.  I'll start getting things up on the internet today as well...but we all know that takes time for me as I get tired of working with the computer so I can only do so much at a time.  But I'll do my best.  But I will tell you I found several new projects at this market, so I'm excited to show them to you.  But I have to get dressed and get to the shop to do it so I'm going now and hope that your day is as much fun as mine will be...going through Nashville Market shopping.  Have a good day and hope your needle sees linen or aida and floss today.