Should I eat some of Amy’s Organic Frozen Samosas or some Hatch Canned Green Chile Stew? Hmmm. Despite their prepackagedness they’re both actually quite good. Really.

See, I don’t cook unless it’s a third full moon or something. I just reheat. Cody cooks sometimes. He enjoys it. I just want it over with so I can eat. My oven is for frozen pizzas and dyeing wool, I admit it.

Things are good. The Isleta show wasn’t as fiscally successful as the Zia show but it was much more fun to do. There was live music, free food, free drinks. And, oh yeah, NO BOMBS. There was also a loverly dress up party on Friday night and we actually had waitresses come to our booths and take drink orders. On Saturday we listened to a singer/musician who did great Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson songs. He did a decent Willie voice, which was unbelievable. Bob’s always pretty easy to do. So even though I didn’t sell a whole lot of stuff it was fun. And Beth sold a respectable amount of stuff. It was her turn, that’s all.

Here’s a photo of us from the fancy schmancy dress up party. I’m the one on the left. I felt a lot sassier than I looked that night. God I hate the way I look in photos. But I got to wear a really cute skirt I bought in a 50% off clearance sale at Torrid several months ago. I bought it online and was really surprised with how cute it was when it came in the mail. I thought it would be fun but it was so cute. It’s a very swishy twirly dancing skirt. Our nerdcore husbands were cleaned up and looking handsome as well.

While I’m stealing photos from other flickr accounts here’s a photo of Erin’s little Fuzzy Peach Bug baby girl on the pinwheel blanket I knit for her Isn’t she a cutie? She’s wearing the matching bolero and hat made by another knitter using the same yarn (Blue Sky Alpaca Organic Undyed Cotton). It was just by chance, I love that.

Some of my stuff will be for sale at the Craft Mafia table in the small craft show going on in the corridor between the downtown Hyatt Regency and the Bank of America building on Friday from 9 to 6.

I’m also in the process of putting the gypsy scarf kits that are left up for sale in the Etsy shop and I’ve put some of my Xmasy postcards up as well.

Barry is home safe and sound! And I gave a really nice scarf and thank you note to the State Policeman who found my purse and made sure it got back to me. He was really nice.

So my first craft show experience was strange but I made some money and learned so much from the whole experience. And I doubt the next one will have a bomb so hey it’s gotta get better! Maybe I’m pushing my luck but I’ll be sharing a booth with Beth this weekend at the Route 66 Society for the Arts’ show that’s going to be at Isleta this Friday and Saturday. Here’s hoping that this one will go without the whole evacuation snotty el cheapo customers thing.

There will be a formal invite-only chichi artist’s party with sales this Friday night (I have a few invitations to this if anyone’s interested) and public sale on Saturday from 9 am to 7 pm. This show seems to focus more on the handmade aspect so let’s hope the people will be prepared for handmade prices. I’m not sure if it’ll be a funky handspun crowd but we’ll see. I’ll be putting anything that doesn’t sell in the etsy shop anyway.

I have some more photos from the show. They’re just cameraphone photos so still dark and fuzzy. These are projects I had mentioned but hadn’t posted photos of yet.

This is the felted bag I was talking about last week. The khaki yarn is Manos de Uruguay and the purple stripes are that purple alpaca sparkly stuff. I love this bag. I’d set it up in a display with socks and sock yarn. The purple yarn is some of my handpainted sock yarn. The scarf on the left is a fun striping scarf with eyelets that I strung stripey ribbon through. I need to get a better photo of that scarf.

These are the knit kit packages I had put together

Some have the gypsy scarf skeins I posted earlier, a few are patterns and a novelty yarn, there are bigger ones for the big shawls that come with the pattern. Each one has a set of bamboo chopsticks that I sharpened, sanded, and waxed into knitting needles and a fun label I designed and printed out. They got a pretty good response. I sold about four at the Zia Show I think?

Today will be fun if a little less traditional. Ashley and I are both work widows (Cody has to work tonight and her husband is in Idaho for work) so we’re taking her little boys to eat turkey at a local cafeteria then going to her place to play with felted beads and needle felting. The little boys will do the bead felting and we’ll be doing the needle felting of course.

Since I dyed yarn and roving last year, I like this new crafting on Thanksgiving tradition. The meals aren’t as great since I go eat at a restaurant but I get to enjoy the crafts all year! Way more fun!

In any case, have a good time today whatever you’re doing!

I can drag this joke out for weeks I’m sure.

GOOD NEWS!!! As my sister reported in her comment to the last post, a state policeman found my bag last night right after the evacuation and called this morning. I was at the show by 8:30 am so I didn’t have a chance to find out if Barry was still in it (Cody was to embarassed to ask LOL) but he had checked that there was still cash and id so I assumed Barry would be too.

I spoke with the officer tonight and yes Barry is in the bag! He even got a free ride to Soccorro and back with a policeman. What other stuffed animal can say that? (Remind me to tell you about Agnes Gooch the bear someday she’s been all over the place.) Anyway, I just wish we’d gotten pictures.

Today went much better all around actually. When I got the the show early this morning one of the vendors in a booth next to us was packing to leave. They weren’t pleased with the sales, the lack of advertising, and especially not pleased with the bomb experience. They had shows coming up in Las Vegas so they were packing to go. One of them suggested that we use his space and combine it with ours! Ours was pretty cramped and was like a little cave inside between two corner booths. He even helped me move the tables and suggested how I arrange them. They were so nice. In fact, I met a lot of great vendors this weekend.

The customers? Well, some of them were nice anyway. Some were just rude and cheap. But that’s direct sales for ya. Seeing the scrunched noses when they saw something too funky or the rolled eyes when they saw our pricetags made me really appreciate the impersonality of online sales. But there were a lot more today. I think all the publicity about the bomb scare actually made more people come to the show. Weird.

So this morning our booth changed from this:

To this:

It’s what you saw right behind the information booth at the entrance

The cameraphone doesn’t take great photos but you get the idea.

So calloo callay Barry is spending another night with the cops then he’ll be back home to mama. And this show is over. And I made some decent money. Got some good responses despite clearly being in a show targeted towards a, well let’s just say thriftier customer.

Now I’m going to sleep for a week.

and not in the good way. We haven’t been selling a whole lot but that didn’t bother me. And really the bomb threat that turned out to be potential radioactive pipe bombs didn’t bug me as much as you’d think.

But I’m really really upset by this:

NOOOOOOOOO We’re hoping that someone found him, oh and my purse, yeah that would be nice too, and returns him tomorrow. But I made a poster for him just in case.

Print them out! Tell your friends! We have a Missing Barry Situation here!!

Noelle Panic Level Orange! Not!! Kidding!! Here!!

Ok! After a lot of drama (to which I reacted by going and hiding in the corner to knit for a while - hey, I’m a Cancer! It’s what we do!) and more trips to Party City store than I’m willing to admit we seem to have gotten a booth nicely set up and the Zia Arts and Crafts show starts tomorrow at 10 am. I meant to take a photo this afternoon after we’d finished putting up the displays but I forgot until we were just putting the last dustcover over the racks.

So I’ll take photos with my cameraphone and flickrmail them to the blog in the morning. I’m completely shocked the three of us (there were supposed to be seven but…seriously, don’t ask) managed to pull it together on a week’s notice. I’ve learned a lot of new things from this process.

Among them the importance of working as a team and sharing the responsibilities. That way no one person gets too stressed and we all feel involved in the process. But it’s also really important to have the other people on the team be people you trust to get their tasks done too. Which can be hard for some folks. But it’s kind of part of the deal when you’re in a show with a group. On the one hand you save money on the booth fees but on the other you have to trust the people you’re sharing the booth with. I got pretty lucky in that I trust the people I’m working with this weekend. With the extra stresses we had this week we split the tasks up and pulled it off. I’m so incredibly proud. And the trust got stronger. Which is cool. I’m hoping to learn more in the next three days. We’re also planning on applying the things we’ve learned this week to some exciting projects in the future but not before the holidays. God no, not before the holidays.

I have a bunch of felted bags, some roving, I made a few drop spindles, handspun, dyed sock yarn, scarves, some totally KICK ASS gypsy scarf kits in little translucent chinese food takeout boxes with their own little chopsticks I whittled into knitting needles, a few other scarf and shawl kits, some really cute hats, two neckwarmers with pin closures that Ashley made especially for them, and some fun holiday postcards! Have you ever seen holiday postcards? I haven’t so I had some printed using two of my favorite photos from last year.

Ashley has so much stuff! Tons of scarves, hats, wristwarmers, gloves, earrings, bracelets, and the coolest crocheted beads! Lots of beading and crochet! And it’s all so colorful and soft! That girl is creative!

Beth has lots of socks! Some using handpainted sock yarn (which she also has for sale) and several different sizes in a natural color. She also has some scarves and a hat or two. And wristwarmers. She’s taking orders for socks made on her sock knitting machine! These suckers do ribbing and short row heels. Her bring your own yarn deal is my backup Christmas plan since she can literally crank out socks in whatever yarn I bring her!

Mara has great shirts, adorable hats, and cute armwarmers. I don’t even know how to describe her work. It’s like postmodern punk, harajuku, cyberpunk, ethnic, scrappy, antifashion? She would totally kick Project Runway’s ass. Yes, that’s right I said it: she’d kick the entire show’s ass.

Mara has to be out of town for family stuff so the rest of us will be manning the booth this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until closing time.

Friday’s hours are 10 am to 5 pm
Saturday’s are 10 am to 6 pm
Sunday’s are 10 am to 5 pm

We’ll probably all three be there most of the time. I know I’ll be there all day tomorrow and most of the day Saturday. I’m hoping to be there Sunday afternoon until closing. Come by! We’re all so nervous you’d laugh at us. But we’re excited too.

We got a really good spot for our booth. It’s about twenty steps from the main entrance of the Manuel Lujan Building at the Expo New Mexico grounds. We’re in Booth 206. And I have a handy little map! Click on the photo for a hugely huge map of the building.

Enter the Expo/Fairgrounds from the West/San Pedro side using Gate 3 or 4 then head to the Manuel Lujan building on Main Street. If you need more info about the layout you can download a map from the Expo website.

Ok last minute stuff to do around here. I forgot to bring a few things today and I might have to dye more roving. We have more spindles than roving right now! Oops!

Wish us luck!

Oh! And Erin and Tomas had a beautiful little girl the other day! Go wish them well too!

I would totally marry Cascade 220. Cody is only slightly uncomfortable with this. He just doesn’t want to end up on Jerry Springer. My wife left me for a ball of yarn.

I made a felted bag using blue Cascade Heather and Nashua Ivy which is an alpaca peruvian wool blend with estrellina (?) in it. I took a risk and just felted that Ivy (ooh no swatching!) and it is beautiful.

The blue is just a little fuzzy but the white is glittery and quite fuzzy! I’ve been calling it Peruvian Delftware since it’s got Peruvian wool and the colors remind me of Delftware. Love this bag!! I bought some silver grommets to make it into a drawstring bag around the thin part using some felted cascade I cords.

I pretty much made this up as I went along. I’ve been mentally playing around with drawstring bag patterns. You can see two of my earlier attempts later on in the post. They’re loosely based on other patterns I’ve seen around I guess. But I’m not referencing any specific patterns at all while I’m knitting, just freestyling.

I doubled the cascade and knit on 15s from the bottom up and this yarn is SO SOFT and warm and the colors are beautiful! I actually bought some Cascade Quatro at the store today. Which means that I’ve been to the new Village Wools three times and I’ve bought Cascade each time. And I still have the cabled shawl to knit for Jocelyn’s grandmother. Lots of Cascade knitting in my future!

I’m working on another bag right now that has a long rectangular flat bottom using khaki colored Manos and some purple Nashua Ivy. I have a pair of bamboo handles for that one. It’ll be funky and felted. Can’t wait to see how the purple felts. Hopefully it’ll keep its rectangular shape too. It’s hard to guess with this freestyling thing.

This is that handspun kool aid dyed hat that had started out as a drawstring bag but was too short and became a hat. I threaded this lovely iridescent ribbon in the eyelets and now it looks cute and retro. This hat is adorable.

And I finally pulled Peach Kelli Pop from the Etsy shop and knit something with it. It had been sitting in there for a year so it needed to find some new use. I couldn’t believe how it was knitting up as I went along! It striped! Like trekking style! I remember the spinning technique I used for this (really just pre-drafted roving fluffs in different colors put together in a bag picked up at random, I think I learned about this from Adrian) so I’ll have to try it again sometime!

This was another top down freestyle drawstring bag. And using ribbon on the hat I’ve been sort of into the juxtaposition of textures using rougher handspun and shiny ribbon. So I used shiny pink ribbon for the handle on this bag.

I made a cute handspun lacey scarf with ribbon in the eyelets too but I forgot to get photos of that one.

And here’s a felted bag I made using some Lion Landscapes that was leftover from Beverly’s yarn swap last year. I can’t believe it’s been over a year since that party! It’s a cute bag and I looked around to find a nice little button to close it. The Kokopelli seemed really appropriate. It’s a weird little bag but hooray for stashbusting! Now if I can just get rid of the last ball and a half!

We were at the polls when they opened at 7 am and had a bit of a wait in line. Maybe 15-20 minutes. We had coffee, ipods, reading materials, and knitting to entertain ourselves. I actually followed the Alibi recommedations. Which included two Republicans. I’ve never voted for a Republican in my life (I’m not kidding) so I was somewhat traumatized by this. They were for local candidates (County Sheriff and State Auditor) though so it’s not like I really care all that much and I pretty much agree with the Alibi’s opinions about them. So everyone that’s given me crap about being a bleeding heart liberal yellow dog democrat can stick it right up their arse I can claim to be bipartisan now.

After voting we went out to breakfast then visited Target to get a freestanding garment rack and hanging shelves for displays for the show. Then went to Village Wools, of course. I mostly behaved myself. Just some Cascade Quatro, Noro Iro, and, ok, some koigu. And an umbrella swift so I won’t have to worry about leaving my precious Goko swift at the Lujan building.

Oh, just so you know, we’ve had so many automated calls for this election we unplugged our house phone yesterday and don’t plan on plugging it in again until after the polls close tonight. So if you need to get in touch with me call my cellphone or email me!

by reading my blog you’d think I was hibernating or something. I’m totally not. In fact I don’t really have a lot of computer time at all right now. I’m too busy making stuff!

Like seven new gypsy skeins

from left to right they are

Rusty Trawler

Blue Bird’s Nest

Craaaaaazy Quilt

Gypsy Cowgirl

Babykins

Pank

And Sleepy

No, not really. This one is Gypsy Macrame

All for the Craft Show. More photos later. I really need a nap.