06.26.07
Stepping Back and looking at the Big Picture
After recovering from the trip to Eugene and the Black Sheep Gathering I’ve paused and taken another look at the weekend. As has happened in the past, my expectations of the venue were not met and I feel we made the right decision to leave Eugene without vending. (Besides the fact we could find no one who would tell us where we were suppose to be!)
The name, Black Sheep Gathering, gave me visions of buildings full of cottage business, vendors like myself. I saw this trip and vending as a peek into what is ‘out there’ in the small fiber business community. In actuallity what we found were 3 buildings full of commercial vendors selling yarn and roving that anyone can purchase in their local yarn shop or online. It was dissapointing to say the least to not find a single vendor, in about 60 of them, who were selling products from their own sheep or yarn that they had dyed themselves.
On the flip side, we would have been unique. Dressed in our vintage 1900’s costumes, me working on the sock machine and Linda chatting up the customers would have provided attendees with a different view of the fiber arts cottage industry. But, I’m afraid, those attending were looking for the commercially manufactured yarns and roving, the deal, something on sale, cheaper then they usually pay. My products, not known in the knitting community but with a small following, would have been passed over because of their lack of label recognition.
When figuring up the costs of lodging for 3 days, $300 the price of the venu $90, meals $100, gas $100 and other expenses $50, plus the fact we would have been outside in the wind, and the fact NO ONE KNEW WHERE WE WERE SUPPOSE TO SET UP….we did the right thing.
So where does this take me? Once again I am looking at narrowing my vision, accepting venues where my products will be unique and not blend in with the crowd. I’ve also decided (after a long discussion with a friend who has an EBAY store) to restock my inventory in my EBAY store and on ETSY. Of course I still have almost all my yarn, socks and other items on Connected by a Thread. Even though managing inventory on 3 internet sites does take up a bit of my time, it is worth having my items in various locations. As to the fact that my yarn….Rainy Day Yarns… does not have name recognition in the big pool of hand paint yarns, maybe one day one of the bloggers I read will check it out and post the link. But I guess I should be careful what I ask for!
Purchases from Black Sheep.
I will say I walked through those 3 buildings three times and could only come up with two fiber related purchases. One was a pattern for a sweat shirt alteration that I purchased just for the sheep cutout pattern. The other was this hank of beautiful merino/tencel. 
I’ve been spinning and have 2 plyed some yarn. Now what to do with it? Finally I purchased a pair of beautiful Amber earings. I’d watched a show on Discovery last week about Amber and since then had been wanting some. 
What were the chances that I would find a vendor at Black Sheep Gathering that had Amber earings?