It has been two years since we participated in the East Mountain Fiber Farm & Studio Tour. And, WOW!, are we glad the dates worked for us this year. The Tour occurred this past weekend and it was a smashing success.
In preparation, Lee and I turned my fabric design studio into a Pop Up Shop, which meant putting away collapsible work & cutting tables, the steam press, my project bags of fiber and fabric, sweep the floor (poor spiders…), and created order where order does not normally exist. (Just ask Lee.) While we were at it, we inventoried our processed fiber. Boy, do we have an inventory of fiber, but that’s another blog.
We decided to put garments, scarves, hats, bags and other items created one to four years ago on deep discount to move product. The studio was repopulated with sale tables, racks and other display areas. Danita Coulter did her usual masterful job of cleaning up the barn so that we could showcase this year’s fiber clip. We also put new mom & cria into a barn catch pen so our guests could “ooh & ahh” six-day-old Normandie. (D/D for short).
There were already three car loads of visitors waiting at 10 AM Saturday morning when Lee went down to open the ranch gate. This foretold what was to be a constant stream of visitors both Saturday and Sunday, start to finish, with never a pause in the day. Not even to take a bite of my well-planned, pre-made sandwiches for lunch.
So much product sold we ran out of our special Whispirit shopping bags. We were so exhausted Saturday evening we just couldn’t bring ourselves to repopulate the sales tables and racks until Sunday AM and then the ranch gate was opened and it happened all over again! We have nothing left but a pile of hangers and empty tables where all the handmade vests, coats, jackets and accessories use to be.
The best part of both days was showing old and new friends what we do, how we do it and introducing our newborn cria. Sundance & Atticus (our Great Pyrenees herd guard dogs), always vigilant to strangers on the property, were the biggest winners as they got petted and loved by EVERYONE. Lee was jealous. Our raffle attracted over 100 entries. CONGRATULATIONS to Pattie S. from Albuquerque who won the purple shawl featured in an earlier blog.
My, what a great time. A special “Thank You” to our fellow Fiber Tour participants who worked diligently to publicize and find sponsors for this year’s Tour (especially Bill Herman, Sandra Holzman, Robin Pascal and Ginny Zvoch). Robin and Sandra are the dean’s of this event. Thanks, as always, to Danita, who helped us look so good. And of course, to the many, many people who spent part of their weekend with us, we specially say Thank You!!
Until next week……… Sandy
