Anything Fiber Sale 2016

Yesterday was the Anything Fiber Sale which was an absolutely wonderful experience. It's set up to be a place for people to go and destash the fiber related stuff that they've decided they're never going to use. So it's basically a big yard sale for just fiber arts stuff. The booths are relatively inexpensive so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to take my dyed wool out to the public and see if there was any interest. I wanted Jackie to come with me but unfortunately her hip has been hurting her real bad. Fortunately my good friend Sue decided to come with me - she had some really cool needlepoint kits she wanted to offer for sale.

It was a four hour drive and table set up started at 7:30am - that meant we had to leave at 3am. Hoooly cow, I was sure Sue would bail after I told her that but no! That woman is intrepid! So with a car full of Jackie's detash stuff, 36 braids of hand dyed wool, and Sue's awesome kits we hit the road. Despite my best plans, we arrived late at 8 am but we still had plenty of time to set up before the 9:45 am deadline and take a walk around the place. There were a lot of vendors will awesome stuff including some folks selling merino for $3 a braid. THREE DOLLARS! My heart did a little flip flop, I don't mind telling you. I thought after people saw that, no one would want to pay for my stuff which was priced between $10 and $14 a braid, depending on what the fiber content was. I felt really anxious at 10 am when the doors opened and people started coming in.

There was a great crowd - people were actually lined up at the door. A few people showed polite interest but kept walking and I started to think I would never sell anything ever when a fellow walked up, chatted with me a bit about wool properties, and then bought a braid of corriedale in a colourway I named smoldering coals.

My first sale at a fiber show. <3

That sale really gave me a lot of courage - no matter what I wouldn't have to go home and admit that no one had bought anything I made. And that really helped loosen me up. I made an effort not to lean too hard on people who showed an interest (don't you hate the awkward feeling when you just want to browse but a very talented and well-intentioned sales person / artist tries to sell you?) but I passed out cards with my website address, answered questions, and generally had a great time. People actually wanted to listen to be babble (at excessive length) about the material and mechanical properties of wool! Amazing!

I sold 18 braids of wool, precisely half of what I brought. I had two tables - one with one wool and one with destash stuff and Sue kindly ran the destash table so I could focus on my fluffy stuff. We did pretty well. Even neglecting the destash stuff, once I account for my material costs, booth rental, and gas money I made a modest profit on wool sales alone. That's just amazing. It's given me a lot of hopeful confidence and I'm looking to team up with Julia, my fellow dyeing friend, to get some booths at local fiber festivals.

I learned a lot of things:

1. Different people have totally different tastes in colour. I think we all know my feelings about blue and Jackie has often encouraged me to be more adventurous in my dyeing. I have produced some braids I thought were downright ugly. Jackie insisted some of them were really beautiful but I was pretty sure she was lying with a motherly affection. In reality all of my favourite braids like Witch Queen and my graceful blue and green blends sold but so did my least favourite braids. I came home with stuff I like but don't find very exciting - isn't that interesting?

2. Felters will buy hand-dyed wool. This is my bias showing through - I don't really felt much, though I've looked into the wool types that felt well for a potential customer. As a spinner, I've selected my wools and dyes to suit other spinners. I had no idea felters would be such a big marker but I think atleast a third of my sales went to felters. Wow! That's pretty neat to me because I'm in North Carolina where a lot of finer sheep breeds don't do as well. To get semi-locally sourced merino and the like I've got to head north where there's a less oppressive humidity in the summers. But Romney sheep do well here in NC and in the beginning I bought a lot of reasonably priced romney wool top to practice my dyeing on. I thought I'd have to abandon my Romney - it's great for durable garments like hats and mittens but it's really not as soft and fluffy as a lot of people want their homespun to be. But Romney is great for felting! So I have a great excuse to keep supporting my local Romney shepherd.

3. I can't be trusted with a pocket full of cash at a fiber sale. I guess we already knew this. :p Sue, that wicked enabler, watched the booth so I could go wandering around several times. I didn't go crazy though, I just made a some purchases that I feel really good about. I got some camvas aprons for my little table loom, some Chicagoo sock knitting needles - I've been wanting to try them out. I got a knit picks binder for Jackie and also all the dyes that were for sale at one wonderful booth. :x That's an investment, right? Hardly counts.