Shepherd's Harvest Festival Report #1

We set out for the Shepherd's Harvest Festival with low hopes on Saturday morning - which is not as depressing as one might at first assume.

I haven't yet gotten any of my patterns in printable form yet, or any designs knit up in saleable form; I am only just learning to spin, so I have no commercially saleable skeins. I don't even have a logo yet, or business cards. Obviously I won't be ready for commercial endeavors for a while. So the only thing I had to sell was a relatively untested (sale-wise) crochet pattern by clever friend Timary.

The true purpose of our table was to sell the folks' book... which was the only product *they* had for sale, so our display was pretty limited!

"The Wee Mad Road" has been out for only a few weeks, and is only now entering the period where sales will be more dependent on the interest of strangers than on the enthusiasm of friends and family. So we all went into this whole vending venture with the tentative hope that we might possibly sell enough books to pay for the cost of renting the floor space.

The day was gray and chilly, and didn't improve over time. By afternoon it was pouring rain. But inside there were plenty of fibre-intoxicated folks who were in the mood to chat and ask questions, and the books were a hit. My dad was in fine form, chatting people up and pulling their stories out of them - and my, we met a lot of fascinating characters and heard a lot of interesting (and sometimes very touching) stories. Enough to fill a new book! I wish I had remembered to bring my camera with me, so that I could show you photos of the wonderful people we talked to. As it is, you will have to trust me: next year you should definitely come to the festival and come by to say 'hi' and meet all the wonderful people who gather there.

Timary's patterns, I am happy to say, also sold very well. Your socks are in the works as I type, Timary! (They may take a while to finish, though - for some reason I seem to have picked up several extra projects this weekend...)

Next Report: How I volunteered to do a bit of spinning, and it ended up costing me hundreds of dollars... and I was happy about it!