Vogue Knitting LIVE Recap!

Chicago—October 2012

We’re all home safe and sound in New York City, after a slightly longer Vogue Knitting LIVE Chicago than we had planned! We’re happy to report that our staff are safe and our office in New York came through Hurricane Sandy after being without power for a week. Some of the team in Chicago got out early, the rest were stranded, but happily for us, the amazing Palmer House Hilton Hotel, our site for Vogue Knitting LIVE, was able to accommodate everyone. We were lucky enough to all get home before the end of the week.

Our event completely took over the Palmer House, filling every available space with our craft, from our filled lecture hall off the lobby to the classrooms up on the seventh floor. The Marketplace took up two floors with more than 80 vendors selling everything from yarn to stitch markers. The Red Lacquer room lived up to its classic name, being the site of all our fashion shows, free demonstrations, and panels, not to mention our cocktail party and gala dinner! And knitters found spaces to sit and knit (for charity and themselves) in the Knit for Kids Lounge on the Mezzanine, the Meet-Up Lounge in the Marketplace, and more. Everywhere I looked, I saw sticks—or hook—and string at work.

Our evening events were both graced with the presence of Debbie Macomber, who just released her new book, Angels at the Table. We were honored to be the site of its debut—our cocktail party on Friday night was its release party! In Saturday night’s Gala Dinner keynote address, Debbie spoke about her path as a writer, entertaining the crowd and even inspiring our attendees to put down their coffee and rise for a standing ovation. Debbie is now the spokesperson for World Vision’s Knit for Kids, and we joined with them to distribute knits for needy children in a South Chicago school in the days before we opened Vogue Knitting LIVE; a video about the event aired at the Gala Dinner and you can watch it here. During the show, we took more donations in the Knit for Kids Lounge. The outpouring of support was amazing! We urge you to continue your support of Knit for Kids right now so items can be distributed to those in need in the aftermath of the horrific storm in the Northeast.

We are so thankful to all our volunteers and staff members who devoted their time to making the event so successful, and especially to everyone in Chicago who offered to help us out with places to stay, cars for errands, and more while we were stuck in the city. We can’t thank everyone enough. You were every bit a part of making Vogue Knitting LIVE Chicago such a smashing success!
 
—Trisha Malcolm
Editor in Chief, Vogue Knitting