Monday, October 3, 2011

Bend Fall Festival

I arrived for setup at 6:15, before most everyone else. This gave me the luxury of unpacking and setting up before the show site became a traffic jam. Even though it was my first time with this booth and racks, I had the whole thing unpacked and set up in a couple of lazy hours.

Notice the photos on the wall? It's so much easier to help people understand how much work goes into making these garments if they can see the whole process.

This show was a lot of fun. It's so much easier to interact with people in a larger booth! There were lots of kids eager to see how weaving works... and you never know which one of them will be inspired enough to become one of the next generation of weavers.

These three girls wanted me to take their picture in my cloaks, so I made a deal to take one picture to share on my blog. Don't they look like they're having fun?

But, all good things come to an end. This one was a long, protracted end. I worked super hard this weekend so I just couldn't "whip through" the packing. (It takes a lot of cajoling to get all of the stuff into that van and still leave room to sleep.) I was among the last vendors out so I decided to take a four hour nap and begin my drive at 2:00 AM.

This plan had two benefits: the air would be cooler to keep my engine cooler, and there would be fewer cars to be annoyed by my van driving 35 MPH over the mountains. It worked. I got home around 7:30, slept 'til 9:30 and called my mechanic. He'll look at it tomorrow and assures me that it'll be good to drive back to Sisters next weekend and Hood River the weekend after that.

Luckily, I made just enough money this weekend to pay for whatever it'll take to get me to the next couple of shows. That's how it works, I guess!

2 comments:

Elise said...

Does your van have a name? I'm not a fan of naming cars, but for some reason with these posts I always want to root it on...Go __[van name], go!

Perhaps I'll just leave it as Go, Blossom, Go!

:)
Elise

Susan said...

Show and sales like these are so much fun and so completely exhausting (but in a good way!)

Hope the van hangs in there for you!

Susan