SAFF was, predictably, a great time. This despite the fact that our trip did not begin well as we found out at the very last moment that our Sarah would not be able to join us. Gryphon and I swallowed our disappointment and soldiered bravely on, and soon were giggling hard enough to comprise our safety behind the wheel. Driving the "Beast", as Sarah and Sam have dubbed the crazy yarn bus the Sanguine Gryphon takes to shows, is truly a"laugh as hard as you can so you don't cry" experience anyway, and then add pouring rain and gravel mountain roads and maybe some confusion as to where the road is and you can get true near-death moments. Phew.
Pictures will come, once they are re-sized and flickred and such. For now, you must use your imagination. Imagine the usual beautiful and very medieval Sanguine Gryphon booth, with music and booth decorations, and a lovely lady garbed in amazing period costumes, including one she made herself that was just stunning. You know who that is. Now imagine that kate forgot to bring her Dragonfly Fibers sign, again. Duh. Although, it does say something about the growth of my business that people overall had heard of me and knew my stuff was different from Gryphon's. Hurray! That was a big moment for me, actually.
I think that one of the reason's I had such a great time was this sense that Dragonfly's presence is growing. I do not know the actual numbers from the show yet, but it seems that my yarns and fibers sold really well, too. I know that when i unloaded the Beast yesterday, I found less than half of the yarn I'd brought to SAFF with me. I keep thinking there must be more somewhere, 'cause this is weird. But good weird, you know? I also had some nice wholesale inquiries, and one potential wholesale customer did buy a good amount of Dragon Sock for her shop:)
But probably the best part of the trip was the friends. We'd met so many great southern knitters and spinners at Stitches South last spring and got see many of them again. (Missed seeing a bunch of them too-i'm talking to you, Carla, LindaB, Phyl, and Ro!) Katey helped us set up (THANK YOU!) and helped us throughout the weekend in the booth as well. She and her buddies Amy and Lori also started an impromptu knit and spin in near our booth, sending even more customers our way. Yay!
Wayne and Brittany of the Knit Witch repeatedly performed heroic feats for us and helped us set up, and stay up:) It was so great to see them again and get to know them as friends! I may have spent some money in their booth, some on Christmas presents and some on, well, me. There may have been a sweater's worth of merino roving in my shopping bag. Love Brittany's roving; the color play and the silkiness are calling me! I'm also crazy for Wayne's pottery and special ordered a few things he hasn't made before: a drop spindle vase (don't you need one for all of the spindles you've been collecting so you can show them off in your living room?) and an earring bowl (very cool idea i saw at Crafty Bastards). These are going to be the next big thing, i'm sure of it!
There are quite a few other highlights of SAFF, but for the sake of breveity, I shall continue my story in a few days when i get my pictures together. in the meantime, go see Katey's pictures. I believe there is a video as well:) Of course, i have some no one else has!
One more thing. Thanks to my friend Laura (and much encouragement and reassuring from many others), I finally have a Ravelry group. Hurray! I've been saying that alot, and thanks to some very fine work on Laura's part, as well as some great friends, i already have over 100 members. More yays! I want to let you know that as a promotion for my group, the first 200 members to join will be entered into a drawing for a skein of my new sock yarn, Djinni Sock, in a colorway of the winner's choice. This 200 includes those already in the group. So, go tell your friends, okay?
Okay, two more things. Speaking of Djinni Sock, did you happen to catch that Sneak Up on the The Loppy Ewe on Monday? Talk about exciting! The Djinni Sock went up in the evening and was ALL GONE by mid-morning the next day. I have doubled my next order from my Djinni "dealer", and I thought this last one was pretty big. So, okay a third thing, as soon as i come down from the nice rosy pink cloud I'm floating around on, I'll re-open my shop and update it. (That will be tomorrow, Thursday afternoon and evening) And yes, there will be a few skeins of Djinni Sock, for those of you curious to try it.