Whew!

(Thank you, everyone, for your kind thoughts and words about Great Grandpa Ken.)

Did you hear that big sigh of relief? Yeah, that would have been me. The Flame Tree Arts Festival 2007 is over, y’all. Now I can try to get things back to normal, clean my house and not have to think about my son running through the house or standing at the door calling out, “Mama, Ma-ma!”, wondering where I am.

In all, it was a great experience and I am so glad that we were actually able to do it. I met so many new people, all of whom really seemed receptive to the items that we were selling. This experience has given me hope that there are festivals or craft shows of this sort in Juneau that I can participate in.

A quick recap of my thoughts are as follows:

• I like the set up for the most part. I liked that the food was on the other side of where the crafts were. I didn’t live here when it was at American Memorial Park, so I can’t compare the venues.
• I didn’t like how grimy I felt after every day. It is the dry season here, so the dust was really flying and everything had a slight coating on it.
• I did like seeing the fire trucks out hosing the grounds down to try to cut down on the dust issue.
• I didn’t like that they were wasting water. Come on, I am a treehugger after all.
• I liked seeing the different crafts. There were bath & body products (which I bought and are great), pottery items, quilts, crocheted hats & bags, lots of jewelery, woven baskets, bags, hats, mats, etc., photography, caricatures, paintings, and lots more that I am totally drawing a blank on right now.
• I didn’t like the booths (there were only a couple I think) that were selling junk. And by junk, I mean cheap plastic crap for kids…blow up chairs, light up swords, super balls, etc. That is not “art”. It is mass-produced, commercially available, imported from China, most likely to break before you make it to the parking lot, crap. It has NO place at an arts festival. I only glimpsed into the booths, so I don’t know what else was sold, but I am positive that it was more of the same.
• I appreciated the fact that electricity was provided and each booth was guaranteed a light bulb on a string.
• I did not like the fact that the lights in the tents were on from 8 am until late at night. Totally unnecessary and a huge waste. Especially since the Utility is so strapped for cash, I thought that there might be conservation. That is what I get for thinking, right.

And because a post is more fun with pictures, here you go:

Welcome to our booth!

I am looking truly idiotic (BFF, don’t you dare say a word about the hat), meanwhile, Deece is showing a new knitter the most common knitting gansta signs. Not really. She is just clarifying a stitch technique, I believe.

We offered free knitting and crochet lessons. We had a few takers and it was great fun! Wouldn’t you like to learn from us?

The other table in our booth. The tent next to us was Fotten Gaga peeps. It is my understanding that “Fotten Gaga” means “Crazy Animal” in the local language. They sold t-shirts, stickers, etc and were very popular with the teens. But they weren’t early risers. The Fotten Mamas were! (don’t take that, that one is Deece’s).

Some of Deece’s jams and preserves. These sold out in no time, everyone loved them.

Freshly made hair flowers. They also sat in the back of our booth and made fresh lei’s. Everyone commented on how wonderful our booth smelled, and it is no wonder.

One of the most favorite men in my life. This kid gets cuter all of the time. Oh, and please notice Harry’s photos…they are stunning. If you want to see more amazing underwater pics, go to his album.

So, back to normal. Now I can start on the baby sweater for a friend in New Jersey that is about to pop, plus I have a special bag to work on for my friend, a lap blanket to work on for my other Great Grandpa in Florida, and Mother’s Day & upcoming birthday gifts to sort out. Because this year is handmade. I took the pledge, did you?

I hope to blog about Karma in my next post. It is so important to me to get it out there that it deserves its own post. There was much good karma going on in our booth….

Peace.

Crafty

I have the crafty bug big time. Seriously, there aren’t enough hours in the day for all of my ideas. Here is just a taste of what I have been up to lately…

Hungry? How about a nice doughnut? Yum!

Umm, you might not want to eat it…it is my new pincushion! (Please don’t stare at my rusty scissors…everything here rusts in the blink of an eye)

It is made from a few scraps from a couple of different thrifted wool sweaters that I felted the life out of. Cute cute.

I made my first hat!!! My friend, Deece gave me some shiny new size 7 DPN’s after listening to me bitch ad nauseum about not having any. Just a basic hat pattern. Ooh, I got stitch markers for my birthday, isn’t this one pretty?

I have been dying (seriously, folks…dying) to do something crafty for Obama….here is the result…me trying to be cool with my camera like my friend, Phoe…

Basic Hat recipe
Size 8 16″ circ for body, then switch to size 7 DPN’s
Unknown acrylic yarns from Mom’s stash

I have also been having a grand time with my Emma (the sewing machine). Viking Husqvarna, you people really know how to build fabulous machines. This baby runs like a dream. Thank you again, Aunt T for sending her to me!

“No plastic bag, please” bag

This is the smaller of the versions. I have 4 balls of cotton yarn in there and you can’t really see them. It will hold a lot!

Plus, it folds up into its own little pocket, easy peasy to slip into your purse, diaper bag, or keep in your car. Just doing my part to rid the world of nasty plastic bags.

I went and bought more fabric last night to make many many more. Do you like it? Do you want one? I am open to selling them or working out trades…if interested, leave me a comment. Or if you have suggestions, I am all ears.

So, that is what I have for now. I have more knitting to show later. Going to try to figure out this wordpress stuff and work on my sidebar.

Peace.