As we head into the fourth quarter of 2023, there are 92 days remaining. Of the 273 days so far, I have spent 145 days sleeping somewhere not my house versus 128 days sleeping in my own bed. Ack! The away team is winning. Most of that away time has been resetting the house in Pennsylvania. As of 14 September 2023, the house is no longer my late mother's house. As it is a house with no mortgage, my sister and I will use it to benefit family in whatever way seems sensible. For October, that means it will be my launching point for New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, a.k.a. Rhinebeck.
To maintain my sanity, I've inserted bits of joy throughout the ongoing challenge of reclaiming the house from the chaos. For September, that included teaching at Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival, which is only a couple hours' drive. I had never been before. Several of the vendors from Carolina Fiber Fest, Blue Ridge Fiber Fest, and Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair told me what a nice festival SVFF is. I submitted proposals. They were accepted.
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Two happy alpacas keeping dry in the barn. |
SVFF is a delightful mid-sized festival in Berryville, Virginia. I definitely recommend it! Two thumbs up! If you are familiar with I-81, this is in northern Virginia, a little east of Winchester. The people who run the show are friendly, delightful, and committed. I like them a lot. Their effort shows in the excellent market. If you feel Maryland Sheep and Wool is too big, consider SVFF instead. I did not indulge in any fiber goodies as my stash, not exaggerating, is at 491 entries. Both Heather Storta and I did, however, make purchases from Misty Mountain Meadworks. We had never seen a meadery at a fiber festival before. May I suggest other fiber festivals start a habit of inviting such local producers?
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Yarn from
Feederbrook Farm. The colors remind me of fractal handspun. |
From what people told me, the weather in northern Virginia in late September is usually excellent for a fiber festival. It would have been perfect in Atlanta last weekend. I checked the weather app. It was 76°F and sunny in Mableton. Alas, that is not what it was in Berryville. No, in Berryville, the weather had a name — Ophelia.
We were just close enough to the storm to get rain and wind and chill all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Clarke County Ruritan Fairgrounds were muddy, as fairgrounds are in the rain. I was careful to park my little Honda Fit on higher and grassier ground, for fear it might get stuck in the mud. The big challenge was classroom space. At this point, I have been to enough fiber festivals at fairgrounds to assert with confidence that there are no fairgrounds in the United States that have enough buildings or enough classroom space. It is like homes that have enough bookshelf space. Theoretically, this would not violate physics. Yet these things do not occur in nature. The solution at SVFF is to host the classes in tents. This has advantages for messier fiber arts, such as dyeing or wet-felting. In fair weather, I guess this works well enough? But in named weather, not so great.
Heather and I, of course, summoned our professionalism. We taught as best we could. I am very grateful on Sunday the festival found a small indoor space I could use. The students were lovely. I even had several returning students from other venues, which is encouraging. Heather and I both agreed we had a good weekend, in spite of the challenges. Now we have a great tale to tell, the adventure of teaching outdoors during Ophelia! We get experience points for that, right?
Given what 2023 has been for me, I am cutting back in 2024. I will be teaching
a new entrelac class at Kanuga in January. But I am skipping South Carolina
Knit Inn and Carolina Fiber Fest. In April I plan to teach online for TKGA. In
late May I'll teach a week-long session on reversible knitting at John C.
Campbell Folk School. I haven't yet made decisions about Blue Ridge Fiber
Fest, Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival, Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival,
Dallas Fort-Worth Fiber Fest, SAFF, or Rhinebeck next year.
My last show for this year is Rhinebeck, just three weeks away. There are
still a few spaces in my Thursday classes for "Introduction to Versa Lace" and
"Now How Do I Finish?" but my Saturday and Sunday classes are sold out.
Of note this year, Rhinebeck and SAFF are the same weekend. We have bipartisan (pan-partisan?) agreement nobody likes that. Apparently, they are the same weekend in 2024. Yes, we are doing this thing nobody likes twice. After that, SAFF has signed a 10-year contract back on the correct weekend. Hurray! While I won't be at SAFF this year, I do think of it as my home show. I do not expect Rhinebeck to be much affected by the situation, but I am less sure about SAFF? Many vendors had to choose which show to attend. This could be bad. Or this could mean SAFF has an influx of innovative regional start-up businesses filling those blank slots. Please attend whichever of these two festivals you can. The weekend before Halloween should be a de-facto national weekend of fiber arts goodness this year. Autumn! Sweater weather! Share the love!
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