Creating Connections

Craft shows are more than a way to connect with customers and a place to sell your work, they are also a place to network with other artisans and to forge lasting friendships. The Arkansas Craft Guild's Christmas Showcase is especially powerful for bringing together people and creating lasting friends.

Our booth at Showcase is right across from Leigh Abernathy's Twining Vine Designs booth. Leigh is one of the most incredible women I know, in so many ways. She is a powerful, competent professional project planner, an incredible mother and one of the most artful jewelry designers I know. I think it was at the guild gallery that we actually discovered how well her wonderful shawl pins work with my shawls. But at showcase it has become our standard to send people back and forth across the aisle to get the perfect shawl and pin pairing. 

This year, weather prevented showcase from happening, but people are still finding ways to make those connections and buy the handcrafted items they've been waiting for all year. One of my shawl customers really wanted one of Leigh's silver shawl pins to go with her new purchase. Email, Facebook and phone connections were made and Leigh brought the perfect shawl pins to Mountain View. 

You can visit Leigh's Twining Vine Designs etsy store at

https://www.etsy.com/people/TwiningVineDesigns?ref=pr_profile

If you want to find a shawl pin for a shawl you already have or some of her other beautiful jewelry. 

Leigh is also one of the most generous people I know. She gave me a few of her wonderful copper shawl pins to pair with some of my shawls, including a new design that I haven't tried before. I'll wear that one to work on Monday!

In the spirit of Christmas Showcase, I want to pass Leigh's gift on to you. If you buy a Common Threads shawl from me, either in the etsy store or personally, between now and the end of January, I will include a free Twining Vine Designs shawl pin with your purchase. 

Life happens

The last several weeks have been spent weaving, spinning, dyeing, broom and fringe tying. I've been getting up between three and four and weaving for a couple hours before I head into work. Then I weave or spin in the evenings. I wove some awesome shawls and rugs in the last few weeks. 

I do take the occasional "sheep break"!

Shawn and Lena have dyed some beautiful color of broom corn. 

Spinning incredible fine kid mohair. 

This year I managed to weave up every rug fleece that our sheep grew into wonderful Fleecyful wool rugs. 

This shawl is even more beautiful in person. I really wouldn't mind keeping this one. 

I tied so many fringes last week that my fingers are still stiff. 

Shawn and Lena had more beautiful brooms than ever. And Shawn built a stunning show booth that should last for decades, showcase both our products wonderfully and win a good many best booth in show awards. 

We both hit our goals for the amount of product we needed to take to Christmas Showcase, the Little Rock show that provides half our winter income. Everything loaded as planned. Booth, stock and suitcases took less than five hours, a record!

We left on time, running ahead of the predicted winter storm. Two hours into our drive, as we were turning onto highway 67 to Little Rock we got a call that the show was cancelled. Stunned is still the best word to describe how I feel. 

The van is still packed, though we brought the food and suitcases in. Several of us tried to put together shows for next weekend. Leigh Abernathy of Twinning Vine Designs managed to pull together a show for Saturday, December 14 in Heber Springs. I'll post the address on Facebook. 

I'll spend the rest of my time off from work posting the new rugs, shawls and yarns in the etsy store and trying some new promotions. And now that we have this new booth, we will be looking for some more good indoor shows. 

Just goes to show you, no matter how prepared you are, life happens. 

Christmas Showcase 2012

The year of raising critters, working fleeces, spinning and weaving and felting and planning and dreaming all culminated in this weekend show in Little Rock. The Arkansas Craft Guild's Christmas Showcase is an elegant show in the grand ballroom at the Statehouse Convention Center.

This year it was especially grand, as almost every crafts person went all out in lighting, building and decorating their booths. Doug and Colleen Kraatz had their delightful stained glass renaissance booth set up to greet people right inside the entrance.

Stained glass and Christmas elves set the stage.

 Our booth was in the center on the corner. I had pushed myself weaving rugs this last month and had a table, chairs and booth full of them. Shawn designed great banners that highlighted what we do. Shawn and Lena had pushed to fill their section of the booth with very artfully stitched and plaited brooms in all shapes and sizes. The booth really did look good. And we both spent all the time, that we weren't up and selling, demonstrating.  Shawn tied many cake testers and mini-wings and I spun up most of Nilly's whole 2012 fleece.

This year, Becki Dahlstedt, show organizer and potter extraordinare, had put together a "Best Booth in Show Competition". This competition was judged by advertising reps from the Arkansas Times. In secret on Friday, they went around and judged the booths. I know I saw one of them, but I'm not sure who the other two were. First prize was booth fee paid for the 2013 show. Second and Third prizes were 1/2 of booth fee for the 2013 show and a guarantee of the same spot, if you want it.

Common Threads, my side of the award winning booth.

First place went to an incredible brass art booth feature in the back corner. It was a well deserved honor for a gorgeous booth, that I didn't get pictures of! And second place was us. Third went to a wood worker who carves bowls that are beyond works of art - and last year he just had them sitting on tables. This year he went all out and built a beautiful booth. I'll add names when I've had a little more coffee and the brain kicks in.

So, we'll be back in the same place next year, knock on wood and all the other sayings.

We've packed up the booth, reconciled the books and I am on to teach a workshop at Degray Lake Resort State Park. Shawn is heading home and Lena's been taking care of things there while we've been at the show.

Laffing Horse Designs, Shawn's side of our great booth.

I'm going to reopen the etsy store this week, I promised a few people at the show that I'd post what didn't sell there. As I get things listed, I'll let you know.

Safe travels everyone!

Continuity

I'm sitting here, this winter-dark morning, my fingers tucking, plucking and finishing the last little bits on the new batch of rugs off my Newcomb, waiting for it to be light enough to go pack the van for our trip to the big Christmas Showcase Craft Show in Little Rock.

Fantasia's newest rug.

As I measure, price and tag these rugs that I've woven from the wool and mohair grown by the delightful sheep and goats that share our farm, I'm thinking about the bills that we need to cover with the proceeds from this show. We need to pay our homeowner's insurance for the year, and set aside enough to cover the taxes, not only the property taxes, but enough to cover the rest of Shawn's self-employment taxes. He's had a good year selling brooms, and I don't think his quarterly payments have kept up. Even with the 5 bales of hay that dear Wayne and Leesa brought us all the way from Alabama, we need to set aside more cash to cover feed for the critters. My car needs tires and an alignment and we sure could use a new mattress. These rugs are beautiful, as are Shawn's brooms and the shawls that I've already finished and packed, we should be fine.

My mind begins to wander in the warmth of the fire, and I think about how very similar these thoughts and activities are to those hill folk who came before us. How many of the early women who wove rag rugs on my Newcomb in the 1930's sat while finishing rugs and thought about how the money they earned from selling the rugs they had woven would cover the money that was due in their farm and home. How many generations of folks from the Ozarks have worked to gather and shape the bounty of this land and then take  the things they've made down to the big city to trade for the dollars needed for taxes, if nothing else.

The time frame is different - we are going to load our van this morning, and then (Good Lord willing, cross your fingers and knock on wood) we'll drive the winding, but paved, roads and be in Little Rock this afternoon. We've managed to mechanize and shorten the travel time, but the process is still the same.

Well, back to measuring and tagging. Wish us luck, and maybe we'll see you at Showcase.

Stocking up

If you haven't entered my Country Outfitter boot giveaway yet click here and enter it now! If you don't need boots  (and who doesn't need boots) they would make a great Christmas present. 

We've had two hard freezes in a row now, so the garden is going to bed for the winter. The sheep are in their breeding groups and the dairy goats are starting to dry off. It's time for craft shows, indoor work and some catching up.

This mohair shawl just came off the triloom and it is divine.

Right now I'm down to doing only three shows a year, Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour; Eureka Springs Folk Festival and Christmas Showcase in Little Rock. That's way down from a high of 26. Really, my job keeps me pretty busy; pretty entertained; pretty distracted and pretty tired. But I still need to do at least a few craft shows each year.

I do shows to support my sheep; I do shows because I enjoy doing them; I do shows to keep connected with the crafts people that I know and care about; I do shows to look for new crafts people for the Ozark Folk Center Craft Village; I do shows find new homes for the things I make; and I do shows to connect to the buyers and other folks who I don't get to see any other way.

So, right now, I'm finalizing my stock for the November 3 Folk Festival Show in Eureka Springs. I seem to have stuff all over the place. I took two baskets to a demonstration at the Governor's Mansion on Monday. I have stock at the Craft Guild Gallery. I have a few baskets full in my studio and I have quite a bit of work in progress.

I try to do stock lists a week or two before a show and look for any holes to fill in. Currently I have on hand:

XX wool felt balls, undecorated @ $6.00 ea when finished

XX skeins of handspun yarn @ total of $xx.00

XX hand turned crochet hooks @ total of $xx.00

2 sets of hand turned knitting needles @ $25.00 ea

1 felted hook case, unfinished @ $25 when finished

1 felted mohair purse, unlined @ $80.00 ea when finished

3 crocheted handspun hats @ $25.00 ea

1 crocheted wool hat and scarf set @ $45.00 ea

1 crocheted mohair pouch... where is it? And should I line it? @ $25

XX finished tri-shawls @ a total of XX

XX tri-shawls in process (I want to overstitch the bamboo shawl with gold metallic, both for added elegance and to keep the twill weave from slipping) @ XX when finished

XX rectangular shawls @ XX

XX handbags in process @ XX

XX woven scarves @ a total of XX

XX finished rugs @ a total of XX

I always figure it does me no good and frustrates visitors/buyers when I don't have enough stock. People come to craft shows and studio tours to buy handmade items. I always try to have a minimum of $3,000 worth of stock to start a show and I'm happiest (and have my best shows) when I have upwards of $20,000. I don't have the time to make that much stock right now, but it is a good goal.

Mouse fleece - Mouse is our biggest sheep - rug on the Newcomb.

So, I need to quit writing this blog post and go weave... have a great day!

offthebeatenpathstudiotour.com