The first big event was the Blackland Prairie Artisan and Fibre Faire (BPAFF) in Denison, TX. For this event, since it was a fairly long drive, I chose to stay overnight in a nearby hotel. Not only was it the first time that I was bringing my stuff to a fiber festival, it was also the first time I stayed overnight away from my three-year-old son (two nights even!). It was hard at first (when I dropped him off at my mom's and knew I wouldn't be tucking him into bed that night), but I was so busy and exhausted that I didn't have much time to dwell on missing him. But I was really happy to see him on Sunday!
I got to the location a little later than expected, so I put the other people in my booth a bit behind in setting up since I had the tables (sorry!), but once I got there, it was set-up time. The other ladies in the booth (MAFIA: Mansfield Area Fiber Inspired Artisans) have done this type of thing before, so they were able to get things set up pretty quickly. We did have one scary moment when the grids on the table got a bit top heavy and almost fell forward, but two of us where right there and caught them in time and we managed to figure out a way to secure them so they wouldn't topple over. Whew!
My space included my handspun yarn and earrings and keychains made with my handspun as well as my patterns and the samples. I used waterfall hooks to hang the handspun but found that they weren't great because they then overshadowed the stuff beneath them. I also secured my samples to the grids with zip ties--for the scarves that wasn't the greatest idea in the end because they were held with one tie so both of them stretched out from the weight of hanging. Fortunately, once I got home and reblocked them, they went right back into shape. Another whew!
The worst thing about the festival was the heat. Fortunately it wasn't over 100 degrees outside, but inside felt like it was. We were in a big arena used for livestock shows so no A/C and the giant fans overhead didn't do much. I had brought a small portable fan that we plugged in and aimed into our booth which helped a little but not much. And there was one corner of our booth that was just completely too hot. But the ladies who organized the festival were amazing! They kept bringing around cold bottles of water to the vendors (as soon as I finished one bottle, they were making the rounds again), which was very much appreciated.
I got to meet a lot of neat people who came by the booth and got to learn how to use Square--especially the card reader which didn't want to work for me. Argh.
One of the other things I did at this festival was teach a knitting class on how to work cables without using a cable needle. My class was small (five) and included a range of experience, but I felt that overall it was successful. And it made me realize how much I miss being in a classroom. I so much enjoyed working with the students in the class and helping them learn this new skill and cheering them on when they got it. I'm going to work on developing more knitting classes and sending in proposals to other fiber festivals. I want to get back into the classroom more often. And the best part about teaching a knitting class vs. a college English class? No grading!
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So the other big event was the DFW Yarn Crawl. MAFIA was a location this year and operated out of the house of the MAFIA organizer. We had some great stuff under her roof (which she had to live with and be tempted by for 10 days!!) and quite a few shopper during the crawl. I was there for a good chunk of time and got to meet a lot of people who were surprised (in a good way) that all of these indie dyers and designers were right there (nearby for some shoppers or across DFW for others).
Once again I set up my space and was unhappy with the waterfall hooks but wasn't sure how to get past that. This time on the samples, though, I used some hangers and put the scarves on the display figures and was able to spread out the shawl on the wall. During the first weekend, the MAFIA host had a great idea for how to display my stuff without using the waterfall hooks.
So much better, I think, although I'm still thinking about ways that I can change this up to have a better display as I'm still not 100% happy with it. I really want the emphasis to be on the patterns rather than the handspun, so I need to brainstorm and experiment a bit more.
I'll get a chance to do that on a limited scale this weekend as Saturday is the Fall Gift Market at Jacob Rewards Farm. Three of us from MAFIA will be there with our wares. If you're in the area, I hope you'll stop by.
After this, we (meaning MAFIA) don't have any big events planned until DFW Fiber Fest in six months. We're considering some other avenues before then since six months (especially during the colder weather when people want to knit!) is a long time. In the meantime, I'm continuing to design (new shawl pattern almost finished testing and another new shawl pattern soon to enter testing) and I have a full editing calendar ahead of me. (I just finished editing a truly wonderful epic medieval fantasy book..) So even if we don't have any events, I'll still be pretty busy.
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