New Etsy Friends

In order from left to right, then center:

Maple (me) - North Star Alpacas, Dulce - DulcesCreations, Isis - Knitspin , Jessi - White Star Ranch, and Reanee - Squeezle's Galore

This is a picture of some of us from Etsy who managed to get together at Allegan's Michigan Fiber Fest last weekend. We were pointing to and showing off our Etsy pins and stickers. I'm sure that Reanee will kill us when she sees the picture we are putting up. Isis is going to try to get Etsy to publish it on their site blog.

It was so much fun to meet these women who had previously been just a shop name. You know how you imagine how someone looks? I hit it right on with Isis and immediately knew who she was when she walked up to my booth.

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By the way, after looking at this pict of me, I'm sure that I made the right move by going back to Weight Watchers last Tuesday. Even if you are not interested, you will be hearing about my lose. (How's that for positive thinking?)

This is the beautiful hand made Lazy Kate Basket that I bought for myself at the Allegan Fiber Fest this weekend. Her name is Katherine Basket and she was made by Stefania Isaacson (her husband crafts the sturdy handles). Both Isaacsons were incredibly nice and helpful to newbee me. Their booth was just across the aisle and down a ways from mine and this basket just kept whispering, Take me home. Visit her shop Handspun by Stefania in St. Charles, Illinois.
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The socks that you see were purchased from the booth right next to me. The two women in the shop came all the way from Pennsylvania. I could kick myself because I didn't get their names or card. The were fun and sort of watched out for me too. I hate waiting until next year to know their shop name.
I so love hand made socks and so dislike making them.
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EEEEHAW! I found a business card that I'm sure belongs to my Pennsylvanian, next booth neighbor who was so kind to me. Go take a look at her place - Handmade in the Hills - Deb Schildt. Her yarns, hats, and woven scarves are awesome.

This is just a brief post to talk about my weekend vendoring at Michigan's Fiber Fest in Allegan. This was my first time there, well, my first time at a real show - period. We could set up on Thursday after 5, and I'm so glad that I got there about 3 because the stupid 8 wiry cubes that I bought to hold roving took 2 hours to put together. They ended up very wobbly and I was so frustrated that I only put together 6. Many vendors walked by me smiling and saying things like, "Oh, yea, I have several of those in my basement."
Marianne, my dearest friend, arrived about 5 with her soap and we rather quickly, I think, put together the rest of our booth. I stayed at her house about an hour away on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
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Friday was very slow because the advertising for the event names Saturday and Sunday only. Was a great time for shopping. Bought a beautiful basket, some dye, and hand knit socks that I will picture soon.
Saturday was very busy and $$$$ profitable $$$$. The best part was the people who stopped in. Ended up seeing 6 Etsy sellers. Was so much fun putting a face to online friends. I'm hoping that one of them will send me a picture of us to post here. Also had friends from home stop in so that was very special.
Sunday was rather slow again but I got to meet online blogging friend Lisa and her husband. Lisa had a hard time finding me 'cause she was looking for the gray haired AlpacaGranny in the picture with Cassie, and I am now the colored haired AlpacaGranny.
My main sales were rovings. Folks seemed to really like the dyed alpaca and have only four left. I think that dyeing is going to be my main focus for a while. Well, and spinning, of course ☺
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I want to talk more about the weekend but I need to go. Even though I put a CLOSED for the weekend notice in my Etsy shop, I have two yarn sales to get out. Hey, I'm definitely not complaining, just hoping that I didn't sell what they ordered. So, I'm off to dig through unpacked bins......

I so ♥ this roving dyeing! And spinning it! OMG it's so much fun. I have a dozen 2 ounce bumps dyed up now for the Allegan show, but it's awfully hard not to sit right down and spin it up because I want to see what it looks like. I think the dyeing is linking into my watercolor passion which seems to be on hold right now. I do have a landscape with some sheep in it brewing in my head but probably won't wet up the watercolors until October after our alpaca show at Birch Run.
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The granddaughters are coming on Thursday to spend a couple of days. Lucky us! I'm thinking of asking Meredith if she would like to spin a skein of alpaca to enter into the skein competition at the alpaca show. They have a youth division and it would be fun for her - if she wants to.

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It's raining today! We so need it, and it's that nice gentle, all day, water the crops, type of rain. Thank you Mother Nature, Crop Goddess, Collective Energies, God or whoever provided this for us.

This is the bag that I'm going to use at the Michigan Fiber Fest next month to hold all my yarn and roving sales. ☺ I thought the long narrow feature would be great for skeined yarns. I ordered the bags from ULINE and the stickers from a shop on Etsy, my favorite shopping site. Amy made these 2 1/2 inch stickers for me very reasonably. Amy is a college student from Connecticut and runs the etsy store, KittyCrossBones. She sells lots of custom promotional items like bookmarks, scratch cards, checkbook covers, and, of course, stickers and labels. I highly recommend connecting with her if you have the need. She was fun and personable to work with and although, my picture isn't the greatest, she does lovely work, and needed little effort on my part. BTW, that's Celeste in the sticker. And did you know that you can click on pictures for enlargements?
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The barn romances have ended now for a while. We took Alde home yesterday and will wait a couple more weeks for the vet to do an ultrasound on the two girls, Celeste and Ariana, to confirm their pregnancies.
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Son, Rob, will be here from Pennsylvania until Monday. So enjoy having him home!

Getting ready for Michigan Fiber Festival

This is what I have been doing in my kitchen for the last few days. Definitely not cooking. I hate to cook! I'm going through bags and bags of roving deciding what I want to get ready for the Michigan Fiber Festival. I couldn't decide how I wanted to present the roving. Leaving it in the plastic bags and weighing up for people doesn't seem very professional so I came up with this process.

First I weigh out the roving into 1 or 2 ounce piles (I always add a little more), then wind it around pegs on my warping board. The pictures that you see happen to be the 1 ounce samples. Cary suggested that I do 1 ounce samples for folks to try. Sure appreciate her advice since I have only done a walk through at a fiberfest once in my life and don't really know what I'm getting ready for. Anyway...... then I am wrapping the sample with a label featuring a picture of the alpaca that I printed up on cardstock on my computer. I think I will price these small samples at $4 a ball? bump? wrap?, and offer a mix and match at 4 for $12.

So far I have wrapped 73 2 ounce samples and 32 1 ounce samples. Goes fast because I can do it on my bar dividing the living room and kitchen, allowing me to visit or watch television.

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Anyone interested in the breeding that is supposed to be going on in the barn -Ariana almost cushed (cush, meaning kneeling on all 4s) this a.m. She was interested but wouldn't stay down. I'm trying to be patient.