To Market, To Market

The craft celebration went very well yesterday. It was a nice combination of busy and slower times, eager buyers, wonderful craftspeople and an overall feeling of community support. I felt very lucky to have my spinning wheel because I always felt like I had a purpose and an easy topic for discussion with people. I was able to share my enthusiasm (cough, cough)--it is always nice to see people get excited about the differences between breeds of sheep and how soy silk differs from real silk. Once a geek, always a geek, I guess.



Here are selection of Barb Hunt's knitted flowers. Barb normally makes complex installations with fake flowers she collects from around the borders of graveyards (among other wonderful things) but she knit up these for the sale. It looks like an art work to me.



A general view of the space. It was a perfect size for the number of people exhibiting works and the location - just outside the entrance of the restaurant serving Sunday brunch - was the perfect guarantee for traffic through the space.



These are some hooked rugs by Islandsweet and Molly Made.



The knitting section. My yarn and knit goods along with the fabulous hats by Knix Hand Knits.



This beautiful display holds the work of Brenda Stratton's felted scarves, Rilla Marshall's woven scarves and Shawn's knit scarves. After I saw that I was actually selling some yarn, I took advantage of my new found wealth to purchase one of Rilla's scarves. She weaves them in two colours with merino and silk, then dyes them. The wool and silk pick up the dye differently resulting in a complex fabric. The one I chose also is felted slightly so that the merino shrinks making the silk stripe pucker a little. Wonderful, subtle and soft. It practically leapt into my hands as I looked at the display.



And yes, I did sell yarn! I was very pleasantly surprised that people were excited by the yarn and willing to pay for it. Even one of my most funky ones sold:



I am thrilled that there is a market here for this yarn, and thrilled that I returned home with a lot less yarn than I arrived with. I was even more thrilled when the yarn I spun as a demo was drying on the railing of our front porch when a friend came by and bought it while it was still wet. I don't even have a photograph of it but it was pretty lovely: Shawn very generously let me dip my paw into her bag of uncarded, dyed locks so it was a mixture of those and a fairly thin aqua single.

I also was so happy to be a part of this community of craftspeople. One thing that really stands out about this group is the way everyone pitches in for everyone else, whether it is sharing information about possible venues for sales to moving furniture to sharing resources and materials. It is really lovely to be welcomed into this community.