New Zealand Fibre Festival – The Journey (day 4)

Day 4 was our first full day of showing.

Over the last few weeks, after a response from one of our customers, Owen has been developing a neat little spindle based on Mayan spindles. He made a bunch for us to bring down to the show and we decided to demonstrate them early in the morning. Well, people were fascinated by them and we sold out more or less immediately! Within thirty minutes we had to do a list for orders to be mailed out when we return home. One of the people who purchased a Mayan spindle was a young lady called Angela who is a marvelous character and has been delightful to spend time with. She returned not long after purchasing a spindle to show us all the yarn she had created with it including some core spun yarn. The more we have come to know her, the more interesting she has revealed herself to be.

She is a big fan of needle felting and has taught her children to felt as well. Her daughter Rata makes little felt creatures called “Curlers” which bend in your hand when stroked and her son Rowan, needle felted dreads into her hair which look amazing. And yes, she informed me there was only one way they were coming out. 🙂

As with the previous evening, I decided to set a time to share with show visitors about the new loom. The response again was very encouraging so I was very excited and pleased that people were receptive to the new ideas we have introduced.

In the evening we were able to attend a wine appreciation session which was organised as part of the festival. The speaker was Dr John Forrest of Forrest Estate wines, a local company that receives many accolades for its excellent wines,  in particular rieslings. A quiz type format accompanied the tasting of some half dozen wines, and much fun was had. Our table did not win the case of wine which was the prize for the one with the most correct answers, but we also didn’t get the “gumboot” honour for the table that did not get the most correct answers. Dr Forrest was an excellent and entertaining speaker which made for a very enjoyable evening.