CYO Caroline: Ancient Arts On the Road – TNNA in Washington, DC

A trip to TNNA is always a fantastic experience, both for the show and for the chance to get to know a part of the United States that we, as Canadians, might never have visited before! This show was no exception as most of us had not yet had the chance to visit the beautiful national capital. We fell in love with Washington DC immediately! The architecture is magnificent and fascinating, the monuments and museums are awe inspiring and stunning, and the people are fabulous and friendly. No other place has been so enamoured and fascinated and FRIENDLY about my purple hair and that was a real treat – meeting people thanks to a colour.

So let’s take a little tour of our trip. We stayed in an apartment in a historic little brownstone style building and that was a great choice as it was central and allowed us to travel to all the main sites by subway. The subway in Washington is super clean, efficient, and nice to use! The National Mall is of course the central place for tourists as it has most of the Smithsonian museums (did you know there are 19 of them?), the monuments, and other amazing buildings like the capitol buildings, White House, and so on. Nearby are places like the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and you name it!

(hint: you can click each image below to view a larger version)

Ancient Arts in Washington, DC for TNNA Ancient Arts tours the National Mall in Washington DC for TNNA

We saw a lot of amazing things in the museums and I wish I could share them all, but instead here are a few that will be very interesting to stitchers and lovers of history! The little knitted dolls are amazing (even the whorl of the spindle is knitted!) and the Khipu is stunning. Take a look at all the different types of yarn used for this record. And the apothecary shop from 1792… oh my.

Quechua male & female dolls, 1910-1920, Peru

Inca Feathered Tunic, AD 1000-1500, Peru

Inka coca bag with llama designs, AD 1450-1532, South coast of Peru

Ball of cotton with metal weaving tools, AD 1470-1550, Peru

The flight outfit which Anne Lindberg (copilot of her very famous husband Charles) wore. Her mitts were recently charted!

The Food was both amazing and interesting. Cheese for dipping in coffee sounded a bit out there, but it worked!

Caroline D enjoying the worlds best Ramen at Chaplins.

BreadCheese

I had some fun at the Natural History museum checking out the inspiration for our logo… and inspiration for future colours!

Caroline checks the cave art for possible copyright infringement.

And then it was show time! Setup is always fun… but tons of work. It’s well worth it though! The show itself had some great surprises, not the least of which was finding out our yarn will be on the cover of the Vogue Knitting Early Fall issue in a stunning design by Xandy Peters! We met a lot of fantastic people, saw friends, sold lots of yarn, and came home with all sorts of exciting ideas for the future!