ArtsFest2005

I did not do a good job of documenting the Street Fair/Crossroads ArtsFest 2005. It was my very first time doing such a festival booth and I went into my usual sensory overload with the heat, the details and the people. It's amazing I even remembered the camera the one time I did!
The pictures below are from the first day. (And I hope this post even comes out, this site is not letting me upload pictures as usual, so I bravely hit the "Edit Html" button and edited away.)

Margaret and I set up our booth with her things on one side and mine on the other. We both thought that our booth looked great and our work complemented each other's. I think we created a lively, colorful and fun space and that people enjoyed seeing our work. And a few people enjoyed it enough to want to leave us some money and take it home. We saw lots of friends and had conversations about techniques. What more could we ask? Well, perhaps we could have asked that Rita would not have shimmied on up here and rained out the second day of the festival!

The following two pictures show my side of the booth and Margaret's. That is Margaret sitting in the background. Margaret brought lots of lovely and interesting caps, some felted bags and her elegant silk beaded cuffs and necklaces (which, of course, I neglected to get a picture of.)




Here are most of the small things I designed and made, Granny Square Hair Ornaments, Flower Pins, Scarf/Shawl Pins, Linked Loop Wristbands and Leafy Wristbands, a wallet and two bags.

Here are my Garden Scarves and felted vessels:
and finally, a basket of handspun and my hats. My favorite hat sold, the Starbrim Hat with Leafy Band that is there on the right bottom. It was the weirdest combination of emotions - I was happy someone else loved it enough to buy it and sad to see it go.


Here is a picture of Margaret's hats and two small felted bags:


So...Saturday was a pretty good day all around, though so hot I'm sure that people just didn't want to contemplate wool hats and scarves! Sunday it was raining from early morning through the late night. Margaret and I had no tent and thought we wouldn't be able to set up at all. Our very nice neighbors (doing lapidary work) loaned us an extra tent, but rain and wet misty stuff still came in. Then the fair organizers said we could use part of an empty tent on the other side of the artists' market. So, Margaret and I gamely shlepped everything over and set up in a cozy thick canvas-enclosed space. As the rain relentlessly continued we realized that no one would be coming to the fair and vendors and artists began packing up. We did stay until 4 before we gave up as well.

I'm sure we learned a lot about how to better prepare for doing outdoor fairs and I'm very happy we did this one!