One of the big highlights of my weekend was Miss B's go big or go home flower arranging. I'd sent her a text Friday morning and asked if she could bring me a few sprigs of fall flowers when she came up. She showed up with armfuls (yes, plural :-) of fall asters and goldenrod. We arranged them throughout the booth and they were fabulous!
Some of the usual stuff...
We put up both quarter round shelves in the "office" corner and that worked like a charm. Must. Remember. For. Spring Festival.
We put up both quarter round shelves in the "office" corner and that worked like a charm. Must. Remember. For. Spring Festival.
And something new...
Lamb Camp yarn!
I haven't said much about it because I wasn't sure it was going to be ready in time, but OVNF did a great job hustling it through and it's really pretty. I'm very excited about it :-).
In a nut shell, Miss B and I set aside about 75 pounds of wool from the spring shearing at Final Frontier Farm (where Liddy, Blossom, Lila and Keebler came from) and had Ohio Valley Natural Fibers spin it into a beautiful two ply worsted weight yarn.
kbdoolin knit a fabulous hat and mittens from it for display and another friend helped me dye some strands different colors to show how happy it was to be bright and colorful as well (if that's your sort of thing ;-). Both gave the yarn a big thumbs up. Sadly, halfway through the festival some creep stole the hat.
And my Jester fingerless mitts.
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:-/
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I've been doing this show for twelve years now, I think. I've never had anything taken. I wasn't the only one this year. A hard lesson to learn. Well, we all knew the lesson, but I think we like to think the best of people. At least it wasn't something completely irreplaceable and the love that went into raising, spinning and knitting both items can never be stolen. And we're going to move on!
I wore the Isle of Purbeck shawl in the evenings. Perfect!
Took the Renny basket for fun and some "cred".
The 2016 farm calendars were a popular item.
As were the 2016 Lamb Camp calendars and cards.
I sold out of curls the first day.
And even sold some Bird Nesters. I've been surprised that these haven't sold better. I love my bag design and seems like everyone loves birds and bird nests and baby birds...
The mugs sold well though. I had all the mug shots hanging up around the booth and it was nice to be able to put Liddy, Blossom and Lila next to the inside yarn display.
20 did his usual bang up job advertising for National Hug a Sheep Day (coming up at the end of the month!). He was hugged and hugged and hugged (and had his nose picked more than a few times :-o) and I wondered if he was really having as much fun as he looked. Then a family came over and politely asked if they could take some pictures with him and told me they did this every year. Nuff said.
It's a ton of work to pull this all together. I'm not just responsible for our farm's booth, but I also organize the entire Wool Tent for the festival. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. Sometimes I think it's not. But then when I'm sitting next to 20 or standing in my booth talking to people who come every year to see me and show me what they've been working on, tell me news, good and bad, from their year, talk about the news, good and bad, from my year, offer to watch the booth so I can run to the bathroom or get something to eat, hear Gary doing his spiel about shearing sheep or Alan teaching how border collies work or sharing a cup of hot soup with my friends in the tent, I'm proud of my team here at the farm and at the festival and I take a deep breath...and start thinking about next year.
A huge thank you to everyone!!!
There are more festival pictures on the Wool Tent blogspot and Facebook page.
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