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!