Easy Come, Easy Go!

Well, that isn't exactly the right turn of phrase since no part of production weaving and craft show sales is easy, but I think you get the idea.

Two of the four shows that I just finished were successful, bringing in significantly more money than I spent to do them. So I paid my taxes, paid off many of my debts, paid the rest of the show fees for the year, and spent a bunch of money on much-needed supplies.

Pictured here are a shipment of yarn and a new, high capacity beam for my loom. This will allow me to warp roughly twice as much thread at once. I still need to order a new reed to go with it, but once it is folded into the production, the hours that I spend on design and warping will net me twice as much cloth. I'm going to inaugurate it with blue, my absolute, hands-down, most popular color. Guess what's in the yarn boxes...

Floral Diversion

Last winter I decided that it was time to follow through with another dream that I've held for years, to create a space that's surrounded dahlias of all shapes and colors. Well, one of the shows that I did provided too much temptation to resist. I was directly across from a woman who is as passionate and driven to raise dahlias as I am to weave. I picked out about 30 varieties.

Well, they have waited just as long as they can to go into soil. I've put them into pots until I can get planters or raised beds finished. This should buy me a few weeks at least.

Here's the overview of the pots right now. Bear in mind that each plant will grow to 4' tall once they're in the ground.

Some of them are already going gangbusters.

And then, on another front, I'm experimenting with a potential business. I've started a bunch of Japanese indigo seeds. Again, they are way later than they should have been started, but I'm hopeful that I can at least bring them to seed, even if I don't get much in the way of leaves this first year.

The idea behind this crop is simple: production weaving is very hard on my body. I won't be able to do it forever, so I'm testing the waters of a completely different business that meets many of the same requirements. It can be done with no electricity in a way that's sustainable on a small plot of land. It will allow me to continue treating my craft work as an act of meditation. And, most importantly, I think I can make a decent living by selling dyestuff, teaching workshops, and selling my hand-dyed cloth at craft shows.

Bear in mind that this is all years away. But, if I'm going to gain the skills that I would need, I should start soon. The business will take a few years to become profitable, even after I have gained the skills that allow me to offer something worthwhile to the world.

But at this point it's all about planting seeds...

Northwest Folklife Festival

This last weekend was long and very worthwhile. As always, I was in my booth the whole time so didn't get to see much of the entertainment. I did run around after work one night and was astonished at the variety of quality performance being given away for free. Here's a quick sample...

I did, however, get to enjoy the music on a stage about 200 feet away from me. Directly behind my booth was the busker space, which was always lively and fun. And then, periodic oddities occurred, like this one...

I sold almost everything I had with me. So much, in fact, that I feel guilty taking fifteen minutes out of the day to compose this blog post. I need to stitch up a bunch of cloth for my next show in Benbow Lake, California. It's in three days.

This photo pretty well sums up how it felt to be at the Northwest Folklife Festival.

And, of course, in order to have a rainbow we need to have rain. So now I've got everything that's left hanging up and drying in the studio...

I'm going to miss the ease of an electric dehumidifier when my studio joins my home in the off-grid reality next month. It'll be back to the woodstove! And not a minute too soon, in my opinion. The forest charges my soul so I can endure these weekends in the city.

In The Thick Of It

Well, I've finished the first of three back-to-back shows. Next weekend is Northwest Folklife here in Seattle. Then I zip down to California, making a quick stop in the studio to get a batch of cloth shrunk and ready to sew.

Here are some snapshots from the booth last weekend.

Purple! This is the first garment to be sewn and presented for customer review.

Look at the variety of colors in the booth right now!

And a rare shot of the artist disguised as a salesman. :)