Rain, rain, rain
16 September 2010 12:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maystoneIt's raining. And it's cold as if it were early November. I hope that we don't skip autumn and go right into winter. On the other hand, we really haven't had many days when all it did was rain; more frequently we get days with showers. Actually, we've had a lot of days with showers, so maybe this all-day soaker was needed. Trying to look on the bright side here.
What should I update for you? My Swiss cheese memory is not the best for recollection of far gone (say three days ago) events. Heh. We did the big knitters show in Kitchener-Waterloo. I was on cria watch in the morning, so I didn't make it there until noon, by which time things were in full swing. Who knew there were so many knitters? And spinners! I was really shocked at how many people we had at our booth who spun their own yarn - including men. Sally, one of our collective members, was at the booth, too, and she's just learning how to hand spin. Sounds very tricky to me, as if you need at least one other hand to get things done right. I can see how it would be relaxing once you got the basics and the rhythm down, though.
I enjoy doing shows like that. I like chatting up the stoppers-by (no, really!), and I loved being able to talk up the alpacas. We have a wonderful banner that has the consortium name and two large pictures: one of a fawn and a white cria (Bliss and Echo, owned by Sally), and one of our Sparky (white) and Valentino (fawn). The banner drew a lot of attention to our booth, and we collectively talked with a number of people who were interested in raising alpacas and were looking for some information and support.
We did pretty well considering it was our first exhibit as a fiber consortium and our first time at this particular show. There were some things we'd do differently next time, the primary thing being more attuned to color selection. We had some blue rovings (fiber that can be hand spun) that sold out very quickly, and the next biggest seller was some coral and white rovings. (It was great to be able to point to the poster and tell the customer that the white part came from Sparky. *g*) We also had blends that were very popular: alpaca mixed with merino or bamboo or sea cell. That last is just extraordinarily soft. Sea cell is spun from seaweed (I know!) and the texture is like . . . nothing I've felt before so I can't come up with a good description. It's very fine and light and ohmigod so soft and lustrous. It's also very strong so it's great for new hand spinners, apparently; it has loft. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what that is, either. I know that I need to learn more about yarn weights and such before our next show. I never knew that there was so much involved in knitting.
What should I update for you? My Swiss cheese memory is not the best for recollection of far gone (say three days ago) events. Heh. We did the big knitters show in Kitchener-Waterloo. I was on cria watch in the morning, so I didn't make it there until noon, by which time things were in full swing. Who knew there were so many knitters? And spinners! I was really shocked at how many people we had at our booth who spun their own yarn - including men. Sally, one of our collective members, was at the booth, too, and she's just learning how to hand spin. Sounds very tricky to me, as if you need at least one other hand to get things done right. I can see how it would be relaxing once you got the basics and the rhythm down, though.
I enjoy doing shows like that. I like chatting up the stoppers-by (no, really!), and I loved being able to talk up the alpacas. We have a wonderful banner that has the consortium name and two large pictures: one of a fawn and a white cria (Bliss and Echo, owned by Sally), and one of our Sparky (white) and Valentino (fawn). The banner drew a lot of attention to our booth, and we collectively talked with a number of people who were interested in raising alpacas and were looking for some information and support.
We did pretty well considering it was our first exhibit as a fiber consortium and our first time at this particular show. There were some things we'd do differently next time, the primary thing being more attuned to color selection. We had some blue rovings (fiber that can be hand spun) that sold out very quickly, and the next biggest seller was some coral and white rovings. (It was great to be able to point to the poster and tell the customer that the white part came from Sparky. *g*) We also had blends that were very popular: alpaca mixed with merino or bamboo or sea cell. That last is just extraordinarily soft. Sea cell is spun from seaweed (I know!) and the texture is like . . . nothing I've felt before so I can't come up with a good description. It's very fine and light and ohmigod so soft and lustrous. It's also very strong so it's great for new hand spinners, apparently; it has loft. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what that is, either. I know that I need to learn more about yarn weights and such before our next show. I never knew that there was so much involved in knitting.
