Nashville Needlework Market Musings

When I started working at The Attic I wondered if I’d ever have a chance to go to the Nashville Needlework Market. It was bittersweet to go in Jean’s stead this year but all in all it was great fun and a great deal of work.

A highlight of the weekend was meeting our blog friend Astrid!

It was wonderful gathering with like-minded folks from all over the world in support of our craft. One of the most interesting things I found was that the stitching community is a little bit like a mom community. When I was a young mom, in our play groups, we mostly talked about the kids, the troubles and triumphs of raising them, and our broader family lives. But it wasn’t until we would get together for a moms’ night out that we would discover the lives we had before we were moms. Our college majors, careers, hobbies,… All things that had been laid aside or were superseded by motherhood.

At the Nashville market, we are all stitchers first, interested in fabric, threads, our favorite designers… But while we socialized in the downtime, I learned about the diverse experiences had before we were involved in the needlework industry. Meeting people with such diverse backgrounds and hearing them talk about their passions outside of stitching was absolutely fascinating. But needlework remains the common thread.