Sunday, February 07, 2010

Fae Days

All photos courtesy of Micki Da Re
I'm not quite sure now of the exact turn of events, but Robert and I had been talking more and more about Fiber Arts, in general because...well, that's what I like to talk about. After some prodding he attended Black Sheep last year and saw a distinct "lifestyle" link between the faerie community and the fiber folk community. We both thought it would be cool to find a way to make that happen through demos first at the Winter Celebration. Indoors, smaller, sooner and the enormous Summer shindig.

At the same time I was building Krafti-Kit with Laura, and although we had no intention of doing shows per our business plan, this seemed like the perfect way for us to get our feet wet in the show world. It would be good to actually see our potential customers because of our ecommerce experience limiting us in that way.

So it came to be, through Robert's generosity, that we got to do all of this and have a big taste of the Fae community to boot. Here, I'll speak more to my experience demoing and then I'll try and get Laura to chime in on the Krafti-Kit blog with her experience.

I love to teach. I forget how much I love to teach. When one does two days of spinning demos, it's like a tease for folks who might have a passing interest to come see what you're doing. In this case, it had quite an amusing turn. I normally have a lot of kids who drag their parents to see what I'm doing. In this environment, where the children often roamed freely, the little girls were all in their faerie costumes, whooping it up. That left the boys to...find other things to occupy themselves:

A fast turning wheel and some fiber magic.

Suddenly I had a 7-12 year old boy fan club. Such sincere curiosity! It was truly great to see the amazement when one boy asked to just hold a ball of yarn because he had never done so and it was "so cool". Yeah, I kinda think so too. Just a little.

And then there was the experience of wearing flowers in my hair for two days. Quite another thing. I think my big glasses rather took away from the entire look, but hey, sometimes reality just has to play into things, even in Faerie Land.

Drafting fiber with my young guy, Gareth at the wheel

Tracy Irwin Helping me out with a spindle demo

5 comments:

Laume said...

I love boy crafters, gotta get 'em young before the world tells them it's not okay. (sigh, don't get me started on that topic) I taught all my sons to weave and knit and sew and quilt, by their own interest and request. Two of them even won ribbons at the county fair for their work, my youngest won Best of Show for his quilt, in great degree I think because the judge was so jaw dropping amazed that a "boy" had made it. Which sadly, should be a silly thing.
Did you see this photo I took of you? http://www.flickr.com/photos/8606532@N04/4324041319/in/set-72157623207887813/

Melissa Barton said...

You actually caught me smiling! So sweet of you. Thanks.
I personally have no gender boundaries around craft as my father taught me much of what I know ;-)

Sara said...

Sounds like you had lots of fun and that overall, it was a great experience. I love your outfits! I am so sad to have missed everything. I look forward to less interruption to my plans when my youngest is a little older. Wish I could have been there!

Tammy said...

It looks like a great time was had! I am sorry I missed it too and I didn't get back to you when you asked if I was interested. I had a little too much going on right then with the mil staying at our house. Another year maybe I can help out.

Barbara said...

you are so beautiful with flowers in your hair and spindles in your hands.....