www.FiberArtFest.com

Over the weekend, we toured the Turkeyville grounds while there were vendors at the site.  We noted uneven terrain and how people were setup.  This is going to help us assign stalls while noting who needs very flat ground and others that can tolerate being a little uneven.  Being that we’re setting up on grass, nothing will be perfectly flat.

We still have room available and have signed up several last minute exhibitors.  The website was updated over the weekend to include our most recent additions.

Our wonderful volunteers will be running around helping folks get checked in as well as working with the sheep shearing demonstration.  Their assistance for our festival this year has proven to be immeasurable and they haven’t even started working yet.  Just knowing that tasks will be accomplished and that I can hand off things to others has been great.  Not enough can be said about these folks.

We plan on bringing our laptop and air card to update this blog as well as Facebook throughout the weekend.

The forecast for this weekend keeps changing.  The only thing I know for sure about this weekend’s forecast is that the sun will rise and the festival will go on.  I am truly looking forward to meeting everyone.

It is hard to believe that our first two-day festival is less than two weeks away.  I have contacted all the exhibitors one way or another.  Check in for exhibitors will be Friday, October 2nd from Noon to 8 PM and Saturday, October 3rd from 8 AM to 10 AM.  Ideally, everyone will be setup and ready to go at 10 AM on October 3rd.  If someone needs to check in at a different time, we are able to make arrangements easily.

The sheep shearing demonstration is set to go.  We have the pen designed and ready to setup.  I’m going to set it up for the most part on Friday morning.  That way, if I forget anything (like my mind), I will have a quick moment to go and get it prior to the demonstration throughout the weekend.

The Art Quilt Exhibit folks seem to be ready to go.  They contacted me a week or so ago to let me know the number of folks attending.  The Art Quilt Exhibit will be in the remodeled granary / barn on the east side of the road.

The sheep-to-shawl demonstrators are bringing seven people to spin and weave their shawl.  This is truly going to be wonderful and am looknig forward to seeing the final product.

To date, we have about 20 exhbibitors signed up.  This is a great turn out for our first year setting up in October.

We’re on auto pilot now, just waiting for October 2nd to arrive!

It is just about a month until the October festival.  We are already seeing some increased trafic on the website along with e-mails and questions from people.  I received two more exhibitor applications the other day and will update the website in the next day or so.  I received a map of the Turkeyville grounds the other day and will be assigning exhibitors to their spaces soon.  There will be check-in time on Friday (Oct 2) and Saturday (Oct 3) morning.  I will be calling some of the exhibitors to see when the best time-of-day for check-in will work for the majority of people.  Please be sure to thank our tireless volunteers.

The other day, I wrote the press release for our October event.  It was a nice one-page letter to whomever.  I was happy I had several people review it before it was released.  It needed a comma here, a hyphen there.  Here’s a copy of it.  The logo was scaled appropriately on the press release.

FAAF Logo (c)2009

 

 

FIBER ARTS & ANIMALS FESTIVAL IS EXPANDING

Queso Cabeza Farm and Turkeyville USA joining up to bring new festival venue!

After running a single-day event for five years, the Fiber Arts & Animals Festival is joining the Turkeyville USA Folk Art Faire on October 3^rd and 4^th, 2009, from 10 AM to 5 PM on the grounds of Turkeyville USA, just ½ mile west of Exit 42 (N Drive North) off I-69.  Admission and parking are free.

Over the last several years, there has been a renewed interest in natural fibers and working with the land to create useful products.  This second venue for the festival will allow for more demonstrations and artists.  This year there will be an Art Quilt exhibit, sheep-to-shawl event and sheep shearing demonstration.   There will also be several low-cost fiber art workshops for people to learn how to work with wool.

This is a juried event.  Each exhibitor must apply to attend and bring a unique perspective on fiber art.   Along with exhibiting fiber-producing animals such as sheep, llamas, rabbits and goats, some artists are providing short demonstrations at their booths about the fiber arts they practice.  The fiber artistry represented this year includes loom weaving, harness weaving, wet felting, needle felting, spinning wool to yarn using several different methods and rug hooking.  All artists attending are listed on http://www.FiberArtFest.com.

Queso Cabeza Farm was founded in 2001 and started producing the Fiber Arts & Animals Festival in 2004.  The Fiber Arts & Animals Festival was created to provide a low-cost, educational alternative to folks looking for opportunities to work with wool and related products.

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If you would like more information on this event or would like to schedule an interview with Rick Boesen, please call 269.749.9404 or e-mail info@fiberartfest.com.

Over the past weekend, we enjoyed our time at another Michigan festival.  We had our llamas, sheep and, of course, lots of wonderful wool for people to view and purchase.  The weekend started quite rough but ended up being rather successful.

The weather cooperated but was extremely warm.  With temps into the high 80s and low 90s, traveling in a steal trailer made for a very uncomfortable ride for the critters.  Everyone arrived in good order.  However, when we arrived we found our sheep stall to be the furthest away from the other Icelandic breeders.  It was an odd arrangement.

After dropping off the sheep in their pen, we drove over to the llama barn to get them in their stall and start getting the ranch stall setup.  The evening was progressing and at 8 PM, they started locking the doors to barn.  As they were locking the door, we asked if we could at least leave hay and water for the llamas.  It was odd that people would even consider leaving animals in a hot barn without water.  I was certainly discouraged by the whole experience.

The next day, we setup our ranch stall and our wool display.  Being right under the 8-foot barn fan made for an interesting time.  The fan certainly felt good as the day got hotter.  However, trying to setup was very difficult.  We tried to have the fan turned off for an hour or so until we could get setup.  It took nearly an hour to find anyone who knew how and then they were only off for about 10 minutes before people started complaining and turned back on.  The weekend started out very rough.

In working with all the administrative staff who were running the various areas of the festival we attended this weekend, we were quickly reminded that vendors are customers too.  As we move forward and get closer to our October event at Turkeyville, working directly with exhibitors and understanding their needs as well as those who patronize our festival is something we will definitely keep in mind more after the experience of this weekend.

We’ve started receiving some applications for the October festival.  The spacing for the booths is going to end up be quite generous.  However, everything won’t be finalized until a few days before the event.  Several people have expressed interest in volunteering for one thing or another.  It is always nice to have a few extra hands.

In other news, we are finding feeding round bales instead of small squares is saving time and our backs.  Moving the round bales does require a tractor.  Once we overcame that issue, getting the round bales from the field to the critters really isn’t that much of an issue.

If any of you have some ability to make it rain, we could use it here in Michigan.

Just recently, I was talking with one of our exhibitors.  We had a great conversation about everything that went right and not-so-right this year and how things could be in the future.  One the things that stuck in my head for the last couple of days was the quip about how I talk with the exhibitors.  I guess I hadn’t thought about “how” I talk to people or how I approach working with the exhibitors.  Everyone this year received e-mail, phone calls or however they wanted to be contacted by me for all kinds of reasons.

From what I was told, some of the bigger shows send out mailings for one thing or another and then when the vendor arrives, they get the extra information they need to participate.  Except for an incidental e-mail or quick voice mail, little interaction with the vendors actually occur.  I don’t think they all operate like that.  But, the illustration I was given was pretty bleak.

As we grow, my hope is to continue to work with each exhibitor personally.  If at some point we do start getting away from working directly with folks, I think we will need to put forth extra effort to keep the festival focused on the people and not the paperwork.

It is barely three months until the October festival.  It looks like things are shaping up nicely.  I talked to the sheep-to-shawl folks and they are practicing.  They are giong to setup on the big porch to the barn.  As with most barns, the entrance is raised up a bit and people should be able to see them nicely.  They will be right at the entrance to the Art Quilt Exhibit and Workshop area.  Next to the barn, we will setup our Sheep Shearing demonstration.  I think we have the layout of the coral, the tent for our shearer and which sheep are going all figured out.  It will take some effort to get them over there.  It the end, though, it is going to be quite a site.

I have created a Facebook page for the festival.  If you are on Facebook, search for Fiber Arts & Animals Festival in the Marshall, Michigan area and you will find us.  In only the last few weeks since I added the page, we already have quite a few fans.  There are pictures from the June events posted.

The June festival is over.  It was a huge success!  My day started somewhere around 5 AM.  I am not counting all the work I did on Friday or the fact that I didn’t sleep well at all that night because I was thinking about all the things that still needed to be done before the exhibitors arrived.  Anyway, after I slapped the alarm, the day started off quite well.  I had found my FAAF clothes the night before and put them aside so I wouldn’t have to think about them.  By 6 AM, I was outside starting to feed everyone to get them through the day and getting the truck and trailer hooked up.  At or about 7 AM, Pennie (our most outstanding volunteer) arrived.  I gave her the rundown on what needed to be done and a map of where all the exhibitors were assigned and she was on her way by 7:30.  By 8:00, I was on my way down to Marshall as well with Moose and Buck our two Icelandic rams and Sterling, Zoey and Merle our llamas.  For whatever reason, the llamas were the hardest to get into the trailer.  Here I was all geared up to get the sheep in the trailer.  Shows you how much I know about animal psychology.

I had all the critters in the stall I had setup the day before by 9:00 AM.  I was able to move the truck and trailer out of the way.  However, before I did, I helped one of the exhibitors put their critters in their pen.  However, one of the little lambs darted right out.  The chase was on.  After 15 minutes of pure panic, she was caught and put back into her pen.  Somehow, she caught my barn shirt and tore it along the seem.  I was very happy she caught my shirt and not me.  The rest of the critters went into the pen without incident and the truck and trailer were put far enough away as not to get in the way of anyone.

The band began to play at 1 PM.  The traditional Irish music was great.  You could hear it well throughout the grounds.  The speakers just happened to be pointed directly at our booth.  So, we heard every word from every person of the band all afternoon.  It was very entertaining as they sang to the llamas.

The people were easy to work with.  I had some wonderful conversations with people of all ages and skill level.  This one family from North Carolina just wanted some wool to start their kids on felting projects.  Others were looking for inexpensive fiber to start spinning.  Some others yet were looking for specific items up and down the row of exhibitors.  One family in particular started at our booth about mid-morning and promised she would be back.  Honestly, I had forgotten about them by mid-afternoon when they returned.  They had spent all day talking to every exhibitor about what they were presenting to the public and tried to learn something at every booth.  She had come back to our booth with big bags of projects in her hands and a large grin on her face.  It looked like she had found treasures beyond belief.

The festival ended at 5 PM and mostly everyone started to tare down.  There were quite a few customers milling around.  The band took an extended break until 7 PM.  By 6 PM, just about everyone had cleared out.  We took ourselves and our most awesome volunteer out for a celebratory dinner.

Our feet, legs, arms and voices were all tired.  It was a wonderful day!

Today has been full of errands and setting up the site for the festival tomorrow.  I have all the spaces marked.  I just need to attach the signs.  I put our tents up already to cut down on the amount of setup we’ll have to do tomorrow.  I have the exhibitor’s menu produced and published.  This year, I edited the exhibitor’s application and will hand out 2010 applications at this year’s event.  I thought that might be handy for folks.

I have the batteries for the camera charging.  But, when I get a chance to take some pictures, I will post them.  You will be able to see our issues with space creeping up very soon.  We do have many different ideas and opportunities if we were to grow bigger again next year.

The weather has been flip-flopping back and forth between sunny and possibility of rain.  Well, I can’t control the weather.  As they like to say in the government, we are ‘go’ for launch.  Rain or shine.