Plan b-ing Rhinebeck
It was both my and PLY’s first time to Rhinebeck this past week. Rhinebeck. The very word is enough to make me get a little flushed, sitting here in my sweatpants with my bowl of roasted pumpkin seeds and hot tea next to me. A post-festival stupor, one might say. I, the teacher part of me (as opposed to the magazine-y part of me) taught 3 days of classes and then the magazine-y part of me was supposed to go around and promote the magazine. The magazine-y part of me was a bit shy, but the fiber-loving part of me had a great time touching, buying, and eating.
Here’s a few photos, I didn’t take many (soon you’ll see what I held in my outstretched hands instead of a camera). The first are my fiber friends. The ones I only get to see at festivals like this. They’re also my every-night dinner companions and the ones that made me laugh and laugh. Man alive those spinners are funny. the second is one of my all day classes, I liked them all and the spinning was great. They were pretty funny too. The third is my new dream wheel. Seriously, I want one. WANT ONE! If you’re looking for that perfect 40th birthday present for me, you found it! Finally, the last one was on Sunday night, we were all a bit tired and bleary eyed. Still funny though!
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- Spinning friends!
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- All day spinning class
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- I want this wheel!
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- Bleary eyed at the end
Okay, back to the Rhinebeck plan. Here was the well-thought-out plan, and in case you don’t think so, it was a plan. I promise. I planned. I planned so far ahead I even had PLY post cards made. They are pretty. Also informative. So the plan went like this. On Sunday, I’d walk around with my stack of postcards and I’d go to all the booths that carried fiber — as opposed to ones that only carried yarn, see, because I know my audience. I’d walk in, proud and confident, and I’d say “Hi there! My name is Jacey Boggs Faulkner and I see that you have spinning supplies but your booth is sorely lacking in PLY Magazine department, can I leave this postcard with you and you can look at it at your leisure and see if you might want to carry our magazine or perhaps even advertise in it? We have very reasonable rates and the spinning community has been very positive about the magazine.”
In my version of the plan, He/she embraces me right there, I blush brightly as the booth owner gushes that she/he was hoping I’d stop by.
That didn’t exactly happen. Mostly I walked around with my stack of postcards held straight-armed in front of me, like I had a purpose, was on my way somewhere, and hoped that somebody would notice them and ask for one, or mentally tick it away and google it later.
I felt shy. I’m also not so good at selling things. I like things to sell themselves. Until this month, we haven’t really advertised the magazine and we’ve mostly let advertisers and wholesalers come to us when they’re ready.
In the end I had to plan b it. I put my stack of PLY postcards in the bathroom. I fanned them out right on top of the trashcan next to the hand sanitizer and I think it really really looked nice.
I’ve got even bigger plans for MDSW!
Lesson #3 and Lesson #4 cover everything your might want to know about 2-ply and 3-ply yarn, from plying to knitting to balance and unbalance to chainplying. She even compares 3-ply and chainplying. It’s good stuff. I think it’s really important that she shows examples in knitted swatches so we can see exactly how the different plys effect our knitting. Following her lead, because it’s fun to spin along with her, here’s the samples I spun and knit during these 2 lessons. The one on the left is chain-plied, the one on the right is 3-ply. Both are from the same fiber. I was really careful to match up my color on the 3-ply and when I made my loops on the chain-ply, I really tried to have very little color mixing. In the end, I like the gradual color change of the 3-ply swatch but know that it had more to do with my chain-plying technique than chain-plying in general. Both are great techniques and Jillian is good at explaining why.
