My local knitting and crochet group, the Twisted Stitchers, signed up for a community table at the event to promote our group and as it turned out, have a place away from home to veg out at.
Fellow group members and I arrived at 8:30 AM an hour and half before the event opened in order to set up our table and scope out the show. I also volunteered for the event. I was originally scheduled to man the front sign in desk but was moved to man a yarn game. The game consisted of a bag of various types of yarns wound into balls. The player choose a ball, guessed its content (wool, cotton, bamboo, acrylic, etc.) and then stood at a toss line and tried to throw the ball of yarn into a small box with a picture of the animal, plant or chemicals that created the yarn. Winners were given raffle tickets. (California is extremely anti-gambling and so you had to earn the raffle tickets.)
After a couple of hours of explaining the game and handing out tickets I was sent to sit in front of a door and make sure that no one entered without a ticket. Turns out that the doors were locked and my real role was to open the door for other fair event goers who needed to use the bathroom. (A very important position-especially from the perspective of someone desperately in need of the facilities-of which there were many).
In the afternoon I was able to hang out at our community table with a large group of members knitting, crocheting, chatting and having a ball. We encouraged each other to blow our individual yarn budgets out of the water-a task that was really really easy, especially with one vendor selling yarn half off.
A company called the 30 Day Sweater Challenge gave a demonstration and offered a deal plus a bag as enticement to join.
This challenge has a book and website that will guide you step by step through choosing a pattern, yarn, supplies, measuring and gauging and then knitting the perfect sweater for you in 30 days.
Our group made our very own encampment at the Yarnosphere. We always have a good time together. We had a lot of people stop by and we hope they join us in the future.
Another view:
And our pretty table. We covered it in projects that members have recently completed and a few things that we will be selling at a local boutique.
And of course there was candy.
I took a class on interpreting Japanese knitting and crochet symbols so that I can knit or crochet Japanese patterns from the charts without learning Japanese. The class was great and I left with enough knowledge and resources that I can confidently start a Japanese pattern.
Overall the first year of Yarnosphere was okay. I hoped for more vendors and a better class selection. There were 13 vendors. Saturday was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people shopping, taking classes or just hanging out. Sunday was slow with less than half the numbers of Saturday. I hope that next year the event has more vendors and in turn more attendees. Part of the low attendance numbers can be attributed to a San Diego Fiber event that has been around longer and was advertised better.
Keep an eye out for Orange County's own fiber event for next year.
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