More SAFF

Inside the main arena is were most of the vendors were and all the classes and demos were shown. The demos were great, I love watching the spinners. I only do drop spindle so to watch others do fancy stuff was fun. I resisted buying a wheel just as I have every year, we just don't have the room and I have too many interests now as it is. One demo was how to make a coosie on a coke can. It was so simple, a resist technique and I will be giving these away for Christmas I know. I ran into 2 young girls with their rabbits and they had just been waiting for the right audience. I now know the difference between English and German bunnies and more about their diets and habits than I ever hoped to know.
Now back to shopping. More alpacha, someone had cream and black at $1 per ounce. Some veggie matter but carding will take care of that. Several dreamy batts with angelina or flash in them. I am all about the sparkle. I bought a small tin with a soy candle in it and decorated with wool on top of the tins. This is what I plan to make for give aways at the Dec. show. I talked with so many wonderful people. Got to see my teacher Chad and she might be teaching classes at her house again this winter...got to start saving those pennies again.
Finally I made it outside to see the animals. No alpacas? Unless they left on Sat. cause there were only llamas on Sun. Beautiful animals, one young lady was on her first trip away from her mom and she hummed the entire weekend I was told. I talked with llama rescue and they told me who to get in touch with in Ga. when we get that extra acre fenched in. I had always wanted sheep but the coyotes are getting bad so a llama would be more practical and I wouldn't have to get a GP that I would not want to leave outside! The sheep and goats were wonderful, I think it is the Jacob sheep(?) that were so pretty.
Anyway, a good time was had by all and I now have enough supplies to last me until I see the next beautiful batt that I just have to have.....

Just in case you didn't see my give away...

****Fall Give Away**** Win this neckwarmer http://tinyurl.com/ndncpn. Beautiful fall colors. Be the 487 heart at my shop and you win, I will even pay shipping.

Libby's Excellent Adventures at SAFF

We left early Sat. morning for SAFF. Headed up I-85 until we saw a sign that said accident 30 miles again. Traffic had visibly backed up even as we saw the sign so we stopped at the next reststop to figure out what to do. There were several others looking at maps and we decided to head off into the country. It was the perfect thing to do. We went thru little towns with specatular views of the mountains and the leaf color seemed at it's peak.
We finally got into Fletcher and decided to check into our room at Day's Inn. Never, ever will I stay at a Day's Inn again. They did not have me in their computer, then said that Hotel.com had called and canceled my reservation, then said my promised price of $79 a night was now $109 a night and the town was full so we had no other choice. So they entered me into the computer and said my room was now $89 a night. Who knows what will come up on my credit card.
So now we are off to the Fair. Entrance price had doubled but was still cheap. The show floor had more vendors than ever. I went straight to my basket man from Sapelo, an island off of Georgia coast that I lived on while doing my master's research. He was glad to see me and said he had sold most of his baskets on Friday and was wondering when I would show up! I bought a beatiful pumpkin, brown and cream basket and he discounted it since I was such a good repeat customer. That was my first purchase. I next went in to see all the fleece that had won prizes and was graded and now for sale. I had never bought any because of the price but I found a beautiful light brown, airy, fluffy, perfectly cleaned fleece for $45. Had my name written all over it so I know own this year's shearing of Sophie, a 3 year old alpaca. The owner came over to talk to me and thank me so we had a very nice chat and he was telling me what a bargain I got, hah, as I sat there with the fibers held close to my chest like someone might try to steal them.
I will write more later as this was only the barn, I hadn't even made it inside the mail building yet.

SAFF

Have I told you about SAFF, Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival? It is in Fletcher, NC about 17 miles outside of Asheville, NC. It is a great festival, good classes and wonderful vendors. At the last minute I have decided to go. I am not taking any classes this year, only going up on Sat. spend the night and return Sunday afternoon. I love watching the llamhas doing an agility course. One of my favorite parts. Going in and talking to all the goats and sheep is great fun too, even if everyone looks at me strangely. I really don't need any more fiber but I am sure I will smoke my credit card anyway. Will tell about it next week.

Some Fall pics from last weekend

Quiet week

Thank goodness it has been a quiet week at work. This cold lingers on, 2 weeks today. Maybe I have allergies too, we certainly have lots of grasses blooming right now. I am currently working on felted necklaces. I made the focal piece for one yesterday and went to Hobby Lobby to buy all the findings so I could put it together last night. I brought the felt in with me so I could match some beads with it etc and I paid for everything then realized I didn't have the piece of felt. I re-traced my steps thru that entire store and of course I had been all over the store. I went to the register to see if it had dropped there. No felt. The girl at the register and her customers were trying to help me find it (nice people) but since none of them knew what felting was, they didn't know what they were looking for So now I have the perfect findings for a piece of finished felt that I can remake because I used all that wool making the piece I lost. Somedays it is one step forward, 2 steps back, sigh. Still it was a good day.

Weekend in the N. Ga mountains

What a wonderful weekend. It rained gently most of the weekend but the leaves were turning and it made the colors more intense. Sitting on the front porch listening to the gentle rain and watching the leaves fall was so restful. The cabin we stayed in was beautiful and the owner's only charged us one night because of the weather and the fact we got in so late on Friday. What a generous thing to do for us. We will definitely stay with them again.
A local gallery had contacted me in August about demoing with other fiber artists on Sat. I met so many wonderful women. One of them said she collects my work, has 4 pieces, what a great surprise. Mostly there were quilters but there was one woman who make very cool fiber,wire birds and of course I had to have one. There was also a Christmas glass heart that I needed. I sold one of my biggest shawls so I still earned more than I spent, a good thing. I also got orders from the gallery for many more pieces of my work.
Now I really need to bust butt for the show in Dec. My inventory took a serious hit and I better get to work for that show.
One question, I felted lots of soap very easily in the mountains. Here at home, my soap felting is not going as well. Anyone know if hard water or soft water makes a big difference in felting? Wonder what will happen if I use bottled water?

Back from the Show

Well the show is over. There was good and bad from it, more good really. It was a very small crowd and my items were higher priced than most so we did not sell well. I bartered quite a bit with other vendors and now have a new stained glass window hanging of a raven that I love and Christmas presents for most in the office. I am glad that we had a dress rehearal of putting up the tent and the grids at home. It was pretty awful here at home but not too bad at the show. If Phil had not been with me, I found out quickly that I could not do my setup by myself although lots of vendors helped us and we helped them.
It was truly a neighbor hood festival. We were right across from headquarters and the bathrooms. Right down from the vendors (bad thing) and down enough from the music to enjoy it but not be blown away by the speakers. Some vendors had to wear earplugs and shout in their booth to be heard. The economy is definitely keeping sales down.
I made some new friends, will be joining a new website by invitation and I danced alot in the street, by myself to my husband's surprise. I felt right at home in this festival.
The bad news is we only made enough money to get our booth entry fee back plus $11 which we promptly ate. We did not even earn our gas money back but I think I would do this festival again. We had lots of critiques on our booth from both customers and vendors. We changed the way we displayed items a lot on Sunday and it helped our traffic and sales. Good learning experience.

Yeah it's Friday

What a long week it has been. I am doing my first arts and crafts show without sharing the booth with anyone so this will be a first for me. Of course I am nervous, I have been working on getting it together all week long at night. Just need to make sure everything has a price tag which I will do this evening I am still painting sugar skulls too. The house is an explosion. The show is at Pine Lake, Ga which is a small town that is mostly an artist colony. Don't know how well my work will sell there.
On a really positive note, I have been named Crafter of the Week at http://www.mycraftcorner.com/ They did a lovely write up about me and my dolls so check it out if you have a chance.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!