Days 10 & 11

CHT is very small this year but the attending weavers are very serious and their work is outstanding! The member's exhibit is fabulous (I will take photos tomorrow) and there is a lot of RedFish silk in the prize winner's entries.

New this year was the Quick Draw contest. This was strictly a speed contest, the person who wove the longest scarf in 2 hours won. Everyone had the same equipment, they could use their own tools. The warp had to be at least 3 yards, 15 epi, 10 inches in the reed. Two women had their warps measured, wound on, threaded, tied on and were weaving in under an hour.





This picture show one woman winding on, not too neat but fast, her hand is blurry. The winning scarf was nothing to write home about but to go from a cone of yarn to a 3 yard scarf in under 2 hours is quite a feat.

Location:Addison TX

Day 9 - Set up in Addison, TX

It didn't rain today while we were unloading, which is always a good thing. The temperature was in the low 80s so the humidity wasn't bad at all.

Set up went quickly, we have an excellent spot. There are a lot of vendors here that we only see at this show so with a 2 year gap, we had a lot of catchup to do.

This town just wants to be walked in so tonight we walked and walked. When we were about 2 miles from the hotel, it started raining, then lightening and raining. We thought it best to go inside and luckily enough there was a B&N right there so we passed the time looking at children's picture books and ended up walking back in the rain anyway. Something wrong with warm rain.

Day 8 - Amarillo to Addison, TX

Tons of wild flowers along the roadways.

We reached Addison in time to get settled and walk to the Conference Center to see where we will unload. Google Map says it's a little over a mile from our hotel to the Conference Center, however, they never show the shortcuts, ends up its only 3/4 of a mile.

This town is nothing but parks (with fountains), restaurants (170 in walking distance of the Conference Center), shops, and above all of this is apartments, condos, and studios. Everything is in walking distance and the walkways are shaded by enormous trees. And art, this is the center of town.



It's blue.

Day 7 - Santa Rosa to Amarillo, TX

The town of Santa Rosa is on the down side of booming but it does have water and lots of it. Blue Hole is an Artesian Spring and is the scuba capital of New Mexico.








You have to have a permit to dive but not to jump. Boy I love NM.




The water is the most beautiful blue and perfectly clear. The ledge at the bottom of the photo is about 12 foot under the surface, under the ledge it widens from 60 foot to 120 foot.
Around the corner from the Blue Hole is a lake where only swimming is allowed. Everyone from 3 counties must have been in the lake or Blue Hole, freezing their tookies off.
Left Santa Rosa and headed for Amarillo where we crossed the Pecos.








This whole area was once under water and as the water evaporated over the years the mud dried and left these outcroppings of layered mud. Each layer is about a half inch and they are very beautiful and fragile. When we finally got to Amarillo, we decided not to camp as the wind is blowing way to hard.

Day 6 - petroglyphs and sopaipillas

It was way too hot to go out into the desert, so we went to the little volcano in the Petroglyph National Monument. Lots of glyphs, my favorite is the Mcaw.






This one is cool too, looks like a lizard playing basketball.

We headed out of town to Santa Rosa, NM, where we had a pile of sopaipillas and honey for dinner, then to Santa Rosa Lake State Park for the night.



It was primitive camping, a spot with a number, no fire allowed. Very quite and a million stars.

Location:Albuquerque NM

Day 5 - Third day of selling and packing up.

The Albuquerque Fiber Arts Festival is one of the best show we do. The show is put on by the various guilds in New Mexico with tons of volunteers from across the state. It is held at the New Mexico Fairgrounds in Albuquerque and is always very well organized. Their hospitality is amazing with snacks, coffee and water served all day. Each of the guilds has a booth that members enter their work with ribbons awarded.
The guilds represented the following techniques:
Basketweaving
Beadwork
Crochet
Dollmaking
Embroidery
Knitting
Knitting - machine
Lacemaking
Mixed media
Polymer clay
Quilting
Sewing
Silk painting
Spinning
Surface design
Weaving
Wool manipulation
And a Youth exhibit
Also, in close by buildings, were exhibits of the New Mexico Watercolor Association and the New Mexico Gourd Association. All these great artists in one place for three days was enough to knock my socks off! Hand knit ones of course.
We have 3 days to do an eleven hour drive so we might climb a volcano, I'll let you know.
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Day 4 - Second selling day

I got one photo taken before we opened, didn't have time to walk around.


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We stopped on the way to our hotel and had some Shusi. Seafood and cucumber salad, a Caterpillar roll and a New Mexico roll - tuna, salmon, cucumber, avocado, and fire roasted green chiles in wrapped in rice and seaweed. Excellent.


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Day 3 - First selling day over

I love it when we are too busy to take photos. Tomorrow I will take some.


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Location:International Ave SE,Albuquerque,United States

Set-up day over so we celebrated

For some reason, we can never remember that we loose an hour on this trip so we once again shorted ourselves a hour set-up time. To reward ourselves for working hard and finishing up, we went to our favorite Albuquerque restaurant, Two Fools Tavern, for fish and chips and LeftHand Milk Stout. Seems strange coming to the desert for fish and chips but what can I say besides they are the best I have ever tasted. www.2foolstavern.com



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Location:International Ave SE,Albuquerque,United States

Day 1

Finished driving for the day. Watched the sun go down. Now to sleep.

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Location:Navajo Blvd,Holbrook,United States

Traveling food

Being "Traveling Silk Merchants", we are sometimes on the road for long stretches of time. This trip takes us to New Mexico, down into Texas for 2 shows, then up to Kansas before we head for home. Once you get East of the Pecos organic, vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free food is in short supply so I have learned to dehydrate to make good tasting food for our traveling. Packed in the 2 side bins of the truck is enough food to last us 5 weeks except for fresh veggies we will pick up along the way. Well, except for fish and chips and oatmeal stout beer at our favorite restaurant in Albuquerque .



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Location:Escondido Canyon Rd,Acton,United States

Gearing Up

Tuesday next, RedFish leaves on a 5 week selling trip. Between now and then it will be a test to see just how much yarn we can stuff into a pickup truck. Stay tuned as we hit the trail again.