The Letdown

Now we are finished with the Fiber Arts Festival and the Selling of Raffle Tickets and all that.  Saturday, a day of typically grievously gray sky dawned, and we opened the doors at 10 am and many people arrived to take part in the day.  I have no way of estimating crowds (or better, I have no skill), but I would guess maybe 200-250 people came by and spent an hour or two looking at, trying their hand at, or buying some kind of fiber work.  There was quilting and knitting and crocheting and weaving and spinning and embroidery and darning and braiding and sewing more generally on view and, to some extent, on experimentation.

Ed was recruited at the last moment to perform needle felting.  It's an easy activity to learn at a basic level so the fact that he learned it only a day before he arrived to teach it was OK.  For me (and independent of the fact that he's my spouse), this kind of participation was the best.  He had 1-3 people sitting across the table from him all day, from 7-year-olds to very fully grown old people, making little felt name tags with pictures on them and using barbed needles safely.   They were virtually all doing something they had never done before.  And, for the most part, I'm a believer in doing being better than watching.

And the raffle raised about $1600 dollars for the new library renovation (only $498,400.00 to go).  And four happy people won the four quilts (including the head teacher at the local K-3 school and the new checker at the grocery store), and I don't have to sell raffle tickets any more.  I see people who bought raffle tickets and I feel vaguely guilty, somehow, that they didn't all win.  But it is, as with much in life, all a matter of luck.

Putting on an event like this is a tiny place like Point Roberts is possible because there are so few events (especially at this time of the year) that one can pretty much get information out.  You put signs up on Tyee and Gulf and pretty much everyone in Point Roberts is going to pass by those signs within a 72-hour period.  So, thanks to everyone who made it come together, to everyone who participated, and especially to everyone who bought the raffle tickets and thus supported the library building renovation.

Now, the post-adrenaline letdown, and the waiting for spring.  This morning, I looked out the kitchen window and there was a coyote standing in my backyard, looking around.  After a few minutes, he turned around and walked out the way he came: didn't find spring here, certainly.  Although, the crocuses and tulips and daffs are at least all coming up, finally.