Hebron Harvest Festival September 15, 2011 19:50
Jennifer and I recently returned from a weekend of selling our needle felted gnomes and felting kits at the Hebron Harvest Festival in CT. The fair began on Thursday September 8th. We arrived at the fairgrounds to find ourselves up to our shins in mud - both inside the tent and out. Seems the folks of Hebron had been out of power for an entire week from the storms and rain - and boy was it saturated! Spirits were low as we slogged our goods through the mud. But by Friday morning things were looking up, we awoke to sunshine and a much more dried out fairground!
Not to mention a first place win in the Juried Artisan Best in Show competition! Our needle felted gnome house won us a round of applause from our fellow vendors, as well as a ribbon and a $200 prize!
The weather only got better and better for the rest of the weekend.
We
did a lot of needle felting demonstrations. This was a great way for
people to see and learn about needle felting and even give it a try. It
really excited people to buy our felting kits, and we got some great
new gnomes made in the process!
Sales were a bit slow throughout the weekend, but fortunately people were enthusiastic about our gnomes, many claiming they had never seen anything like it. This is surely one of the wonders of sculptural needle felting, people can not seem to figure out how it happens without sewing! Even after all these years I still find the process miraculous.
The
other vendors around us were a great deal of fun to be with - good
thing too considering we spent 40+ hours together over the course of the
four days. Our booth neighbor was kind enough to act as a living gnome
to further entertain our customers (Thank you Rick of Common Good Market
!) Saturday proved to be a long day - by hour 13 Jen and I got a little punchy (as the photo below can attest) and practically turned into gnomes ourselves!
My daughter Grace is still somewhat troubled by the thought of Jen eating her Siberian gnome.
We
are back home now in Great Barrington, Off the Beaded Path is open and
undergoing some reorganization to make room for all our wool, kits, and
gnomes. We are busily felting away, rebuilding our stock for the CT
Renaissance Faire, which we will be guest vending at on the weekends of
September 24 & 25, and October 1 & 2. King Arthur Faire
The wool is flying, the gnomes are multiplying, and I am thinking about making a lava rock monster as requested......
Until next time - Remember - if you look away from your work stop poking or you’ll end up with holes in your fingers, OUCH, or someone eating your gnome......