What a weekend.
It actually began on Friday with the First Friday art openings in downtown Fredericksburg. It is the Fredericksburg Spinners and Weavers Guild's 30th Anniversary. To celebrate we hung a beautiful show in the gallery at LibertyTown Arts Workshop. An AMAZING show that should not be missed if you are in the area. I had two pieces to contribute (the black and green cotton chenille blanket I showed in process in previous posts was a miserable failure. So you won't be seeing that.)
Woven by me with wool. And then felted slightly in the washing machine....
I wove this of cotton. Two different greens in the warp, and a black weft. (I'm testing you Tracey.)
A needle felted witch by my good friend Barbara Posey. She ended up with a basket of wool twizzlers before the day was done!
This is one of my very favorites. This picture does not do the beautiful colors justice. I believe this is a boundweave technique. It allows you to do more hand manipulation to create amazing patterns. VERY time consuming. Way to go Janet!!
This brilliant piece is by my friend Lynette Reed (she uses my handspun in a lot of her work.) She is a woman of many talents. Weaver, painter, illustrator, fiber artist and also the planner of this fantastic exhibit.
Coiled koi fish mobile by Lynette.
This is part of the retrospective wall, showing the results of a project where every participant shared a bit of handspun; then created a project with their collection of bits and pieces.
Knitted Shawl by our illustrious treasurer Anne Nourse.
After mixing with art lovers and then spending some time spinning for the crowd in my studio, I headed home and was in bed by 11:00 since I had packed up the truck earlier in the day for Fall Fiber Festival!
I left the house Saturday morning by 6:45 am, wondering if this was REALLY what I wanted to be doing??? Picked up my friend April who came up from NC to help me....but we didn't have room for her to stay with us in our tiny rental so she stayed with another friend....(we had to borrow chairs too since we have no idea which box ours are in....this show was really a bit of a community effort!)...and off we drove to Montpelier Station, about an hour from Fredericksburg.
Unfortunately I took no pictures. The big vendor tents are often too dark for my camera, and we were so BUSY.
The weather on Saturday was gorgeous. I managed to run out and get some of Carpe Donut's amazing organic cider donuts and then hit the ground running.
At one point we had a line out my booth and down the aisle! A show like this one makes all the hard work worth it. I admit as an artist my ego needs some petting and a successful show is the just the right medicine. And nothing makes me happier then to be able to create pots that satisfy me, and then see them enjoyed and purchased by so many pleasant fiber folk!
By the end of the day April and Greg and I were amazed and POOPED. AND a big surprise! April had submitted one of her own felted creations into the judged competition and won first place in her category!!
And we still had another day!
These pictures really do not do her dragon justice. He is breathing raging orange fire!
All this.
And we still had another day!
Sunday started out with pouring rain (literally as I stepped out the door and headed to the truck the skies opened up....) but after that it was one of those beautiful (to me anyway) misty cold days. Sales were a whole lot lower then Saturday but everyone was still so pleasant and INTERESTED. I love that we had very few people just walk by our booth without a glance.
The funny thing, (this is evidence that stating your intentions has great power) first thing upon rearranging the booth on Sunday morning (I had had to run by LibertyTown Saturday night to pick up more pots!) I said that if the two biggest pieces were to sell, and very little else I would be happy. And you know those two pieces were gone by the end of the day!?!
By 4:00 we were tired and ready to go. Packed up in 30 minutes and were out of there before any serious rain.
And now it is Monday. I am home considering unpacking the truck, packing up yarn bowls for a consignment order at the local yarn shop, replying to a show invitation that was offered on Saturday and just basking in the success before plunging in and starting the making process all over again.
I am so grateful.
