Yesterday I stayed home to work on things that needed doing, so while I was in North Carolina, I was not in Greensboro when the shopping floor of the Annual Chain Link Conference opened.

And today, because I was waiting for a friend to arrive, I did not make it to the shopping floor until the early afternoon, and while I am not the most avid shopper, I could not help but feel some excitement as I toured the vendors’ booths.

One of my first stops was the Caron.com booth where I met Luke Limbrunner, the business manager of internet sales for Caron International. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, he was already out of the Etimo hook set pictured here:

Lucky for me, I already have one.

Another booth that got my attention was Tina Feir and Carl Beeson’s Gate City Yarns. Ms. Feir was the keynote speaker at the Professional Development day, and her knowledge and insights about the manufacture and qualities of yarn were illuminating and informative.

One of my favorites booths was the aptly named Crochet Village. Festooned with an amazing display of samples of the patterns available for sale, I found myself unable to resist this pair flamingos:

I have a cousin who is a collector of facsimile flamingos, and I thought that Flora and Floyd would be a nice (and hopefully welcome) addition to her menagerie.

At some point in my tour of the sales floor, I attempted to walk past the Red Heart booth and found myself unable to resist the yarn vortex. Once I was pulled into the booth by what is, for me, the irresistible force of brightly colored yarns, I got to see first hand most of the colors in the new With Love Yarn line, and they are spectacular.

Many of the colors in this line are named for foods including caramel, mango, lettuce, candy pink, boysenberry, berry red, and grape jam. All of them are lively, and most of them tend toward bright.

No doubt, I will be ruminating in my sleep as to what purchases I will make tomorrow, but whatever I end up purchasing, I know this: It will have been well worth the wait.