San Francisco Gift Fair

Attending a gift fair is daunting in the least and down right dangerous when it comes to finances!! And to think I was there for only one day, a show that is held for 4 -5 days. Thousands of vendors set up booths to sell to shop owners and retail moguls. Then there is me, searching for wholesale lines of ribbons and laces to use in my artistic creations of "wayward threads" and pieces to dye and resell or use in altered art. It's the best place to make the connections you need for supplies but there is so much there and you want it all!

I found a new line of silk ribbon that is woven in Switzerland and looks like a better quality than what I have been getting out of China lately. But I only saw samples and the wholesale opening order was steep. I bit the bullet and ordered the minimum. Mostly silk ribbon but also some french wired ribbon and then there was the separate Midori order of velvets and dupioni bias strips. I can hardly wait for the order to get here and begin dyeing. I also went into the Vintage section which had a cash and carry policy. I was able to buy some vintage lace pieces, some very nice soldered photo pendants to hang on my dyed ribbons. You can see the digital copy of a woman that I drew many years ago peeking through the package holding the photo frames. I have put her in the pendant and like her there so I will be doing more of her.



These lace pieces will be dyed using natural dyes, one of them will be indigo, but also madder, cochineal, chestnut and my favorite cutch. Cutch is a rich tobacco color but it's very gummy and a bear to get to dissolve. You have to work with it and I dislike that part of it. I guess cutch is a good name for it (sort of like it's a bitch? LOL) cutch, bitch, you get it.........



I met a woman who made these cool pendants that I'm also going to string onto my dyed ribbons. I copied her little card write up and if you read you'll know that she makes these frames out of recycled cans. She had some lovely heart pendants and larger ones but by the time I found her I was nearing the credit card max out time!





Now my problem these days is "not enough time". I had to go to the dentist today and then run errands and retrieve my son after school. Tomorrow is one of my exercise days and I'm trying really hard not to blow those off, then I have a voice lesson followed by taking said son to get new shoes and then another singing practice as my husband and a couple of band members will be performing this Sat. night. Wed. is my writing class , Thursday and Friday are booked up sporadically. I think maybe I schedule too much into my life. How does one step back? Don't you want to do it all? When to say no?

I used to be the kind of person that would stay up until midnight working on a project but I don't have the juice flowing at night anymore. I get up early and feel most creative then. So I won't be going to my studio to crank up the heater and wait for the space to get warm so I can work now. I'll have to wait until this the weekend and next week I really am going to say no to anything but working in my studio!!