Well going to SAFF was quite the adventure. This fiber festival is one of the larger ones on the east coast, held in Asheville, NC in October yearly. I went along with Roo of Moonwood Farms to help in her booth and she graciously allowed me to set up a wall of my goodies. So I drove to Alabama to help Roo pack up the Uhaul, and van and then we left to drive to Asheville on Thursday afternoon. We got into Asheville around 7pm or so, which for Roo was early, but we stayed until 2:30am to set up the booth, and then returned Friday morning by 6:30am to finish the set up. Traffic was down quite a bit this year, but the loyal customers still sought out Roo's booth and hopefully fell in love with my stuff as well. We had a lot of fun vending, and although I managed to come back with a sinus infection it was fun. I learned to bring a space heater next year. I will hopefully be set up in the booth right next to Roo next year with a 8x10 space of my own :). We met lots of fun new friends, and made a server at the Chinese buffet we frequented a bit embarrassed but he left with a batt, slightly confused what to do with it, but it was all in good fun. The weekend came to a sad end with the wonderful kitty Uni that we had given to Roo a few months ago having seizures and having to be put down. Not exactly the way you want to end a fun weekend, but we both loved him to pieces, and enjoyed the time we were allowed with him.  

So on to the photos...

Well we are back from the Mid Ohio FIber Fair in Newark OH this past weekend. It was a good trial run for us on how to set up & deal with customers.  Not a super busy weekend, but it was the first year for this show.  There were lots of fun vendors though.  We were set up next to Dawning Dreams Dawn from the Phat Fiber box . That was fun becuase then we could discuss the world of fiber together. 

Booth set up and tear down went really quick which was nice and not very stressful.  So here are some photos of our booth

There were also several other "Rooites" there from the seminars at Magical. It was good to see other alpaca owners out there utilizing what their alpacas give them every year.  We saw Judy from Swisher Creek Farms & Loretta & Linda .
Also a photo of just how stuffed our car was..I'm thinking we need a van

This past weekend was another fun weekend at Magical Alpacas with Roo and Nina and a ton of other alpaca fiber enthusiasts! I got to Magical on Thursday late afternoon, Roo and crew rolled in around 3:00am. The next morning we were up bright and early to start setting up the workshop area and the fiber buffet. We had a ton of fun dyeing some alpaca and working on carding it up to make products to sell in our shops. We took the usual tour of Magical & had fun with all the staff and enjoyed hearing some funny stories.

We all sat around & did some spinning/knitting/crocheting Saturday night & some wonderful new friends even did a late night cheesecake run for us.

We had an authentic Greek meal courtesy of Nina & feasted into the wee hours of the morning.

All in all it was a long weekend but jam packed full of fun & brain storming.!!

While at Magical I had the chance to meet an alpaca that I had bought her fleece from Roo at the Kentucky Sheep & fiber festival. Her name is MFI Violin Certo. She is a beautiful maroon color that occurs naturally in alpacas but is a very rare color and hard to get. After I washed her fleece up it literally felt like silk, so I knew I had to meet her on this trip.  Well wouldn't you know it, she was up for sale & already bred to have a cria in September. So after some negotiations the farm offered me a deal I would be stupid to refuse.  Luckily it involves her staying there till after she has 2 babies, and thus gives us time to build a female pasture & sell her first cria to help pay her off.  She is 3 years old & out of their herdsire Obsidian, a beautiful black alpaca, and is bred to Gathering Storm, a comical muscular boy. We are hoping for a dark rose grey female cria to be born near the end of September, and then we will re-breed her next spring. They have an 11month gestation so it will be a long wait for the second baby. We will get to see her at their annual auction in October that we are helping out with and are hoping that she has either had her baby by then or has it while we are there.That would be awesome. So without further ado...MFI Violin Certo

I went to the KY Sheep & Fiber Festival with the plan of looking around and meeting up with Roo of Moonwood farms and Nina of Fiber Art Work from Alabama. I started out the journey at 5 am on Saturday with the idea of returning home late that afternoon.  Boy was I wrong! First off never go to a fiber event where you know a vendor without a change of clothes. Second of all if it looks hot out bring a fan.

I showed up at 9am as it opened and found Roo and Nina still setting up their booth. They had had trouble getting their trailer hooked up to leave to drive up to Lexington and had gotten in late to start setting up. They were currently running on 2 to 3 hours of sleep. This is on top of the furious dyeing they had both been doing because they were delayed by the TORNADO that had hit earlier this month. So I pitched in to help get them set up & get products out and tag them. 

I saw the baby sheep, admired the llamas and alpacas and checked out the competition. Later on in the day as I was sitting with Nina she started to have heat stroke. It was in the 90s and they were set up inside a pole barn that had plastic curtains around it to "protect" it from the rain. There was no breeze so she went to sit in the air conditioned car to cool down and I watched her booth for her.  So later on that afternoon Roo started getting swamped with people ( she has awesome stuff for sale!) and had no time to sit down & drink anything or even take a breath. So I volunteered to help them out. I ended up staying overnight with them in the hotel ( Roo generously slept on the box springs and I got the mattress)  with no change of clothes or other supplies. 

Since the day had been so busy we were going to go back after dinner and card up some more batts and put out more product for tomorrow. As we were finishing dinner, it started POURING down rain. We got a frantic call from the organizer that it was raining in the "rain proof" curtains and the products were getting soaked.  As any fiber person knows. this is not a good thing.  We hurriedly drove to Walgreens and purchased paper towels, a $2.00 t-shirt for me, and a Sham-Wow. Let me tell you that Sham wow is a big WOW, it helped to dry out Nina's yarns a lot. We spread out all the merchandise all over the floor and put a fan on it praying that things would dry out.

When we returned the next morning, we had to completely re-setup the booth. Several vendors who had no clue the rain had come in had lots of wet product also and were not very happy. We finally got the booth back up and the sales began. I carded up an awesome storm inspired batt on the Mad-batter (must own one!!), and was beginning on the second one when wouldn't you know it, it started raining again. People came running from all over and threw product out on to the isle way to prevent the rain from soaking it. Most of it survived, but it was a tad bit chaotic.

After that, we gave up and the show ended so we worked on making the mass of stuff fit back into the trailer and van they came in. This started around 5pm, and we were there till around 9pm repacking it all, and squeezing it all back in. Then Roo and Nina headed south and I drove back home arriving back home around 1:30am. 

So what did I learn from all of this? Always take a change of clothes if you go to a fiber event. Did it talk me out of going to another? NOPE. I even volunteered to help Roo in North Carolina at a 3 day event in October. She said I can sell some batts at her booth so I"m going to have to card like mad.  All in all it was a crazy weekend but it was a fun one. I ended up with half of a prizewinning cormo fleece that is to die for! It looks like teeny tiny little french fries. I'm going to have to wash it very carefully.  A lot of alpaca fleece, some bamboo, soysilk and lots of fun. I did learn a lot about running a booth at a big show & how to organize yourself. I learned that accepting credit cards is a must for those people that go over their "spending cash" limit.  All in all, a great weekend and I would do it again!