Stitches South 2013

Well I promised a post from Stitches South in Atlanta and I am here to make good on that. :-)

A rare candid shot of me done by the Stitches press staff. I downloaded it from their  Facebook feed. I rather like it. ;-)

We drove down on Wednesday and got the booth set up and then headed over to the hotel to get unpacked and do some grocery shopping. We like to stay in places with a kitchenette and fix our own meals when it’s an affordable option. It’s not a whole lot less expensive as far as food cost, but we eat better. :-) The only con to our accommodations was that our room is on the second floor and there is no elevator. To say we don’t travel light, is a bit of an understatement. Three women and a toddler need a fair amount of “equipment” to be prepared for all emergencies after all. So yeah, it was a production to get unloaded but we managed to get it all in there.

We had a bit of downtime on Thursday since we didn’t need to be in the market until 4pm so we went to the Barnes & Noble in the Cumberland Mall area and hung out for a few hours. It is such a nice place. There were plenty of people hanging out in the many great spaces they provide for that purpose. I has two levels and the children’s area is very cool. Elijah spent most of his time playing with the train play table. I regret forgetting to take a picture. He had the best time. I wish I had the room in my home to build him something like it.

We did a bit of shopping too. Who can resist picking up a few books when you are surrounded by so many choices to tempt you? I got a couple classics for Elijah, The Little Red Caboose, and the Complete Curious George collection. I also picked up a couple book lights for the children to use for their bed time reading. I didn’t gat anything for myself since I do all my reading on my Nook or Nexus 7.

OH! I almost forgot to tell you about the near fiasco on Thursday night. Okay, I got all my gear set up in my booth and went to turn on my credit card terminal and it is giving me this funky message which it is not supposed to be giving me. It is SUPPOSED to boot up and be ready for service. It most certainly did not behave as expected. I freak for a second, then call tech support. This is 5 minutes before the market opens. Did I mention that? Yeah. UGH!

So tech support, to make a long story short, says hardware failure is the problem. They can’t fix it remotely. I need a replacement. What?! I just used it 4 days ago and it was fine. How does that happen? So they say they can expedite me a new one but they can’t guarantee it’s arrival before the weekend. What else could I do? I had to take a shot. BTW, I did ask about a smartphone swiper and use an app. It’s complicated, but we decided the terminal was my best option since I can’t do both and I need the capability at times to store and upload transactions when I am in locations where the cellular service is un-reliable or non-existent. Yes, I know about Square. I don’t want another merchant account. Two accounts is enough. Don’t want another. So anyway, I used my phone as a hotspot for my laptop and used my Authorize.net virtual terminal for Thursday and Friday. It was a bit tedious but it worked.

Hallelujah! My new machine arrived on Friday and worked fine for the rest of the show. I love my technology but it sure can throw you for a loop when it’s not there or not working. My motto is “There’s always a way”. And there almost always is. :-)

The rest of the show has been great! Everyone was very sweet and understanding at our slightly slower checkout and for that I am so grateful. Knitters are awesome!

Here is a shot of the newest Yarn Bowls that Jerry finished right before we left for Atlanta. If any are left when we get home I will add them to the website. I already sold a few of these big ones. My favorite one went first thing yesterday morning before I even got a picture of it.