Over, but not forgotten - I can't believe that it was almost a month ago that we did the Artisan Faire -
It was organized by our friend
Lydia McCauley and a few of her very talented neighbors (click on her name to see a few more of the items that were in the show and to hear her beautiful music)
Squalicum Valley Artisan Faire - With a few invited special guests - - that would be The Shepherd and me, my friend Linda, who makes these adorable cut paper collages, and a couple of other ladies (I was never quite sure who was local or not)
Here is my yarn display (which was made to fit on a card table) with baskets of fingerless gloves and friendship roses just below - It worked just like I thought it would - although because of the placement of our table, instead of having yarn on both sides, I pushed the dowels most of the way to one side - and hung two skeins on each dowel. But that was the nice thing about having the dowels moveable - and the whole thing comes apart and is stored in a cardboard box about 6" thick, 12" wide and three feet tall, that will just fit in the corner of my closet (if I can ever get the boxes of stuff out from in front of it so I can get INTO the closet - but that's a whole 'nuther topic...)
And The Shepherd had his display of roving from our sheepies -
I sold a little over half of my yarn and gloves - he only sold the two bumps of black & white roving (from Wicket) - but I think he made some very good contacts - Roving is not really something that one expects to buy at a craft fair.
I also had my spinning wheel there, which elicited quite a bit of attention (also the fact that I was just about the first person that people saw when they came in the door)
All in all I sold enough to cover the costs of the new display, the new table for the roving display, the wire cubes that The Shepherd had his roving in - all things that we can use again. So I was happy.
There were lovely jewelry items -
And some knitted and crocheted items from a small yarn shop in Skagit county.
Nancy Rumbel was there with some vintage collectables, and items of "whimsey" - she also plays the ocarina (in addition to many other insturments) and sat in with Lydia when she played her music -
If you click on any of these pictures, they will biggafy and you can see some of the exquisite work that these talented people brought to sell.
These are my friend Linda's collages and greeting cards.
Linda & I played some music together too - We'd been practicing for about 6 weeks - she on banjo and me with my 12 string guitar. She did a short set alone, we played three songs together and then I played a half dozen songs by myself - I hadn't played in public for several years (with the exception of church) and I was nervous - but it went well.
These painted silk flags were some of my favorite items - and you have to look more closely at her felted people - I think I might have gone to college with the fellow in the red jacket...
This was Lydia's display of
soaps,lotions and essences that she makes - She did a wonderful job of advertising and marketing the show - we had nearly constant traffic the whole six hours - something unusual for the first year of an event. We were also lucky that the weather was exceptionally nice (almost too hot) - but it certainly brought the folks out to see what we had.
Even thought we were both totally exhausted. I unfortunately decided the night before the show that I needed to re-measure/re-price all my yarn & was up until about 3:00 a.m. - and we had to be up at 6:00 a.m. to be out at the grange by 8:00 to set up - so I essentially got a three hour "nap" - but, I would absolutely do this again. I know my "pitfalls" and how I would change things for the future - in fact I even got an email from someone who was in the process of planning a small arts & crafts fair in one of the assisted living facilities in town. If I had more yarn spun up, I might have considered it, but I have a 4 oz. skein of yarn and 7 pairs of fingerless mitts to make and I still have to spin the yarn for several of them - so, I think I have my work cut out for myself without adding in another venue, don't you?
