The Fiber Festival of New England

My Booth at The Fiber Festival of New England

What a great weekend it was!  The first year of The Fiber Festival of New England was a smashing success.  Attendees came from all over, many travelling more than an hour to get here.  Feedback from attendees was excellent; I and the other vendors (and there were lots of us!) were very pleased with the professional manner in which the event was managed.  The event site at the Big E was spacious: wide aisles with lots of room.  It seemed that the pace was leisurely.  I had lots of time to get to know my customers and met many awesome people.

Next year's date for the event has already been set: the first weekend in November (5 and 6).  I have already paid for my booth in full for 2011!  I will be promoting The Fiber Festival of New England on this site during the coming year because if you are within travelling distance it's a shame to miss this event.

This was the most successful venue all year for me and I'm pleased that the direction in which I'm journeying  with my products (felting/surface design) was validated by my customers.

Sandie, whose blog Rag Rescue I follow,  asked me if I'll be selling my prefelts online.  Yes, I intend to do that. 

But buying a fiber item online presents its challenges since one can't handle the merchandise.  One photo just doesn't capture the wonderful "color texture" of these prefelts.  Each one is different. How can I present  each one in its entirety, capturing the variations in hue and intensity?  

Here's where I'd like a little help from any reader who can guide me.  I do not own a video camera but have been seriously considering it since the price of those Flip cameras is within my range.  If I set up each prefelt with excellent lighting and did, say, a 10 second shoot going from one end of the prefelt to the other, then loaded the videos on my web site with links to this blog, could that work?  Is that realistic?  Could I get good close-up images with an inexpensive video camera on a tripod?  Thanks in advance for any comments about that.

Liz shares her lovely hat

Liz, who bought a bunch of my Meadow Muffin 1 oz balls of yarn last spring and knit some beautiful things, stopped by my booth Saturday to show me the items "in person."  After buying one of each of my newest colors, she kindly allowed me to display her socks and hat next to the Meadow Muffins.  I know I showed these earlier, but can't resist giving you another look.  Aren't they wonderful?  They're a perfect example of what I was hoping for in offering many many colors in small amounts for color work.  Thank you Liz, and sorry I was taking a break when you came back for your treasures!

How could you wear these socks that Liz knitted and be grumpy?

The day is beginning and it's now light enough out (6:10 am EST) to let the dogs out without fear of some wild animal grabbing my littler terrier.  Time to get dressed and do a few farm chores before heading off for one of the jobs that make up my Three-Headed Career Monster.

Prefelts Galore

Prefelts

Over the last few weeks I've been replenishing my supply of prefelts, concentrating on colors for a certain upcoming holiday!

The Pygoras have all been shorn; they were in full fleece and I was worried that waiting until spring for shearing would result in matted, unusable fleeces.  The shearing process wasn't pretty in the beginning because I do not have a stand with the proper fitting to immobilize a goat.  I finally found it easiest to just hold them in my lap while shearing.  There was initially some struggling, but once each goat realized I was relentless she relaxed and almost seemed to enjoy the process.  I enjoyed it too; it was somewhat contemplative and I enjoyed what there is of afternoon sun in early November.  Shearing took way too long and because I used scissors I left quite a bit of fiber, but that's ok since it's starting to get chilly here.