Only three days left before I leave for the first fair of the year- counting today. You michgt be able to imagine the state of things here, and if not, let me give you a hint: all kinds of things are stacked, heaped, drawn out, moved around, checked, and scattered over the place. There's packing material and flyers and there's the box with stuff that is helpful when setting up, and there's the immensely helpful master packing list for fairs that needs to be gone through.

There's also an insanely long list of stuff still to take care of. Much of it is just small things, but things that should not be forgotten, hence they are on the list. Some of the things are seemingly small things that I very much hope will turn out to be actual small things, or I will be in trouble. One of those is making a new Fummelkasten.

The Fummelkasten (which might be translated as "touchy-feely-box") is a thing I invented as a solution to the eternal fibre-selling problem: no spinner wants to buy fibres without touching them. Few people also want to buy fibres that have been touched by a gazillion people so they are all mated and felty, or have gotten disordered, or both. So I have a box with fibre samples of all the fibre types I am selling, and people can touch these to their heart's content, and wen they turn all matted and felty, I replace tha sample with a new one. The only problem is that with the addition of the Rhoen and Valais blacknose tops, I don't have enough space in the box anymore... so I have a new one, which needs finalising the inner structure, and then needs the samples, and of course an info sheet saying which fibre is which. And that you are welcome to touch.

Also, this sometimes gives me these priceless moments of a child going to the box, reading the "welcome to touch" message, and going ahead to compare the different fibres. Quite often, the parent then objects to this, and then gets educated by their offspring that in this case, it is perfectly fine to "look with the fingers". This has happened a few times already, and I always find it utterly hilarious!

I've been busy as a little busybody yesterday, winding yarns and making more distaffs and distaff DIY-kits and printing out info material and cutting reeds for spools for thread and counting things and casting new beeswax pieces and taking stock and re-ordering things, all in preparation for the Allgäuer Nadelstiche and Wollfest Hohenlohe, coming up the two next weekends. There's still plenty more to do - go over my display boards, check all the price tags, print out some new ones, and sort and pack even more things, but I think I'll get it all done in time. (There should be some writing going on, too, but alas, that has not happened the last few days.)

Today will see some more preparation for the fairs, and then it's the Easter weekend, which means I will be taking time off and having a breather, and hopefully the weather will be nice enough for a few longer hikes together with the most patient husband of them all.

So I'll be back on the blog on Tuesday - see you then, and have a lovely few days whether you celebrate Easter or not!

I'm back home, there's an insane to-do list (which includes my fair homework, of course and as always after a fair), and here's pics, as requested, to prove it did happen...


The beautiful baroque garden and, in the background, the Orangerie. The garden was incredibly and delightfully colourful, with lots and lots of different flowers in bloom, and we had good, sunny weather almost all of the time - so the visitors were really in for a treat.

There were, of course, also a few water basins with fountains. It was a proper baroque garden, after all.


I was in the left-hand wing of the Orangerie, almost exactly opposite the door - a lovely spot to stand.


To make things even nicer, I had wonderful stall neighbours: Gunhild Fette, who teaches hand-quilting, and Monika, who runs a yarn shop in Ochsenfurt. Monika had also brought her friend who demonstrated tablet-weaving and nalebinding, much to my joy and delight, as I could send everyone interested in the techniques over to her instead of making do with my small demo objects behind the stall counter.

And this was my view from my workplace:


Not so much to be seen from the garden, but the windows were gorgeous by themselves - and the autumn colours on the hillside were a treat to look at, too.

So it was a really nice three days to spend (though, as fairs tend to be, fairly exhausting). Now it's back to the old list of things to do, taking care of shop orders and emails and getting back on track, quickly, to be finished with the preparation for the next few events and other things coming up. Next on the list: the reconstruction project for the Bernuthsfeld bog body tunic...

I'm at the Nadelkunst in Schloß Weikersheim today, tomorrow and Sunday - when this post goes live, it's about one hour until the fair starts, and I'll already be there, fixing the last odds and ends at the stall and preparing for the first day.

I'll be in the east wing of the Orangerie, with a wonderful view over the beautiful baroque garden. If you're in the area (or not, but fancy a little trip), drop by and enjoy the building with its spectacularly furnished rooms, the garden and all the different textile-related things to look at, or stop by the Stricktreff to sit and knit with others. I'm sure it will be a wonderful event, just like the previous one two years ago.

Since I'll be working all weekend, there will be no blog post on Monday, as I'll be taking the day off. Hooray for an Ersatz weekend!

Bielefeld spinnt is over, and I've sort of regenerated a bit - thanks to a nice, relaxing day off work yesterday. It's sort of funny to turn a Tuesday into a personal Sunday, but nice in its own way. Plus you can go shopping (which in Germany is not possible on a real Sunday, as all the shops are closed.)

The fair was lovely, but altogether also quite a trip, and quite exhausting. Going to a fair with a booth is always a wild ride, with a lot of delight but also a lot of stress. (In case you are interested, I can give you a rundown on my days - let me know!)

In Bielefeld, Margit and I were in the larger hall of the main building, on the ground floor. That meant we were smack dab in the middle of a light, airy room, and right beside a coffee booth too. It's always good to be near a coffee source!

[caption id="attachment_3386" align="alignnone" width="1223"] View of my bit of the fair - the table all set up and ready for the fair!


With the courses that both Margit and I gave, together with alternately manning both booths when the other was teaching, we did keep busy all weekend long.

[caption id="attachment_3385" align="alignnone" width="1306"] Margit's stall and mine, side-by-side or whatever you call it when two stalls form an L-shape...


So busy, in fact, that I didn't get to knit a single stitch the whole weekend, including the evenings. Which means that neither the Baton Rouge jacket nor the Moyen Age sweater are finished yet.

But after all, I can knit at home and all the time, but at the fair, I had the opportunity to meet and chat with lots and lots of nice people, and I sold so many distaffs and spinning kits that I have to make more straightaway to have a bit of a selection to bring to Weikersheim. That's part of the obligatory After-Fair-Homework. (There is no fair without homework. Never. There's always something you discover that needs mending, or changing, or some other kind of attention - and that's on top of the usual after-fair work such as taking stock and doing the book-keeping.)

So thanks to the organisers for all their hard work, and thanks to all the helpers at the fair - I had a lovely time, and I'm looking forward to the next German Ravelry meetup!

 

Part of category "fun things I get to do under cover of my day job": filming. In the most current case, filming a short explanatory video about the oil light swimmers that I carry in the shop - to show when I'm at fairs.

I'm still completely delighted with the fact that a company in Nuremburg has been making these oil light swimmers for way more than a hundred years. I absolutely love using them as the eco-friendly (and cheap!) alternative to tea lights. No aluminum waste, no pricey beeswax tealights, and there's vegetable oil in the kitchen anyways, so also no extra space required.

The concept of this kind of lighting, though, has been out of common use and knowledge for so long that the little round and tri-bladed thingies need a lot of explanation when they sit on the table in my market stall - so I've played with the idea of making a bit of an explanatory video for a good while now. Finally, this has happened, and it ate most of yesterday's work time.

Just like taking good photos of things, it's not as easy as it seems to take a good video of things. It can be astonishingly hard to keep everything inside the frame - good thing I've been doing theatre stuff before, so I knew about the magic that can be wrought by a few bits of tape at key places.

[caption id="attachment_3366" align="alignnone" width="451"] Video setup. It's not looking very spectacular, is it?


Also there was a problem with the SD card I used in the first go, so I got to take all the shots again. Sigh. Now the video-ing part is all done, and only (hah!) the cutting and text-setting part remains - which will hopefully not take a lot longer, so I can take the video along to Bielefeld...

The fair is over, and as usual for events like this, it was wonderful and exciting and a load of fun and really, really exhausting all at once. Fairs mean pure frenzy for several days - it starts with the preparation, as in packing things, making lists, checking stock, preparing food to eat during the fair, and finally loading everything into the car.

(If you are wondering about the food part - yes, there are caterers at the fair, but since we're only two people at the booth, we don't have the time and leisure to toddle off and take a proper break to buy stuff and eat in peace; it's snatching a bite from what we brought when there's a lull at the booth. We don't mind that, not at all, but it means we do have to plan ahead and bring suitable things (including emergency chocolate). In the evening, we're way too tired to go somewhere or buy stuff, or think about what to cook, so that needs to be settled and ingredients bought and brought beforehand.)

Then it's driving there, and then setting up. That means lugging all the stuff from the car into the booth space and then putting up tables, decorating, and setting up things. This time we had the mirror-image booth compared to the one last year, as we were in a different hall, but the basic setup remained the same for us, which always makes it easier.

When I arrived, Margit had already covered the naked booth walls, so we could start setting up in earnest:


There's no picture of the complete and utter mess that happens when both of us are arranging everything at the same time, but this is how everything looked when we were finally finished:



And of course, I brought the spinning bench to demonstrate historical spinning! (It also served as our seat for taking a break, and as a welcome place to put aside skeins of yarn for those shopping):


I did quite a bit of spinning, as it's always fascinating for people to see the historical method - and some even came and directly asked to see it, as they had been told about my spinning by the also-spinning colleagues at other booths. That was really nice!

And thus passed three days of fair, with lots of interesting chats with visitors and colleagues, lots and lots and lots of things to see at the fair (we did a pre-opening-time round one morning so we could get an idea of all the things on offer), and then, Sunday evening, everything gets packed up again and loaded up into the cars, and then there's the drive home - about three hours in the car for me. You can probably imagine how much I enjoyed sleeping in on Monday, and not doing much the rest of the day - there was tea, and some chocolate, and I read a bit, and there was an afternoon nap, too.

Now it's back to all the things that need doing, though. NESAT is approaching, and there's a paper to be prepared for it. No rest for the wicked, eh?