Aftermath from craft fair

Well I survived the craft fair last Saturday.  The day was beautiful, sunny and warm.  Which I think was a bit of a hamper for me.  Who wants to try on wool hats or scarves wearing flip flops and shorts in 84 degrees?  Not too many it turns out.  I can't say enough good things about the fair itself.  Very well organized, over a 100 vendors, booths ready for you when you walked in, check-in lasted all of 3 mintues.  So the fair itself was well done.  There was a steady stream of people, but very few of those people were buying from me or others in my vicinity.  Oh well, that is a craft fair, you truly never now how it is going to go.  The good things that happened were many.  I had so many lovelycomments on my items, they loved the colors and the quality of my work.  Take a look at our booth....

the laundry rack really worked out well I thought, my yarns looked very nice and it was an eye catching start of the booth.  My wheel tucked in nicely in the corner when I wasn't using it.  The brown and white star hat in the bottom left sold.  The lady wanted it for skiing and I think it will be wonderful for that.


Here is Ellen, sipping her coffee as we wait for the start of the event.  You can see her embroidered linens next to her.  She did well and was happy after the fair. 

Now for the funnies.  I did sit and spin, that was a huge draw, many people stopped, some grinning in deilght, others staring trying to figure out what the heck I was doing.  One young kid, just kept muttering "weird, weird"  One gentleman was so fascinated, I showed him the roving, explained the process basically from shearing to dying the fleece to creating the roving to my spinning it.  The best though was a woman, looking intently at what I'm doing and saying "did you make it?"  now I'm thinking, well yes, I am making "it" but I said, yes, I'm making yarn.  She got a very puzzled look on her face and said "no, you made that right?" and she pointed to my wheel!  I said, no, I bought the wheel from a company and she just was shocked and said she didn't know any companies made such things anymore.  I guess she thought I whittled my wheel out of fallen timber from my backyard?  I explained there are many companies that make wheels.  She just couldn't imagine that. 

The other funny thing is that even though I 'm sitting there spinning away, right next to a rack filled with yarn with labels saying "handspun" on them, most people did not realize that I made that yarn.  smile...

It was a long day but all in all a good day.  I gave out many cards with my info on it, I believe several have checked out the blog so far, maybe they will stick around.

Next up is the Wild Wool Market on November 27 at the Susan Hensel Art Gallery in Minneapolis.  Who knows what will happen then!

But the other nice thing of having the craft fair behind me?  I can now knit things for the sole reason I want to.  Not because I think they may sell.  So Yggdrasil is back in the basket next to my bed.  The weather has cooled off plenty so I can happily knit again with a huge pile of magnificent wool in my lap.  And just because I cast on something new a couple nights ago, in the Norwegian-Handknits-Heirloom-Designs-Vesterheim book there is a lovely work day shawl, it is knit as a large garter stitch center section, then you knit a lace border to it.  I think it would be a great shawl, but also a nice baby blanket.  I had a 1200 yard skein of Briar Rose yarn, in a deep red/black mix of superwash wool.  So I am just mindlessly knitting garter stitch rows and it is delightful....pictures next time.

If you are someone I met at the craft fair, I'd love to hear from you...