I've been busy preparing for the upcoming holiday craft fairs. This year I'm doing one in Ukiah, California, and my daughter, Alexis, is going to help out and contribute some of her own creations to the display. She's very excited and is working like crazy to get some hats made. Her's look similar to the one posted here in April. This fair is a benefit for the local Waldorf School, so I feel very good about participating. Too many craft events these days are run by greedy people wanting to make money off of crafters who are already making less than minimum wage. There are lots of creative people in the Ukiah area, so it should be a fun event worth checking out if you're anywhere nearby. I'm posting a separate entry with details about time and place, etc. for those of you who might want to come, along with dates for the annual Telegraph Ave. Holiday Fair in Berkeley, which is not going to a good cause, and may or may not be worth a visit.
I have a couple of new styles that I'll be showing. One of them is on my website, but I'm keeping the other for the fairs. If the one on the website gets sold before the fairs, I'll make another that's similar. If they both get sold in Ukiah, so be it. By that time, I may not have time to make replacements.
This is the one that's 'already out'
- It has a very nice beaded tassel, and the top part is extra sturdy, being made from two ply wool and llama wool, so it holds it's shape perfectly.
The one that I'm saving is a bit fancier with fluffy dyed Samoyed hair, pink poofies and a feisty tassel on top. They're both my own original designs, as are all my hats, which brings me to something I'd like to state here for the record. I would prefer that admirers of my hats refrain from expressing their appreciation by trying to copy them. I've seen various such attempts online done up in store bought yarns, and I have to say they don't look especially nice. My hats tend to maintain their own inherent copy write protection in that they can only be made with my yarns combined with my particular sense of design and color - plus I never use patterns. It's all a product of my own completely individual brand of creativity, and a little respect would be nice.
A woman once asked me how I get the ideas for these hats. When I told her they come out of my brain, she just stared at me blankly and said "No, I want to know how you learned to do this." When I told her I'd been to art school, that seemed to settle the matter. For her there had to be a prescribed method for doing everything, so anything could thereby be learned. Well, it can't. Some things just sprout out of nowhere. If it's especially great, it's called inspiration. Obviously my hats aren't particularly inspirational, but for sure there is no way and nobody - not even me - who can teach a course in how to make them. So there is also no way to reproduce them.
You can however go to art school and take courses in Fiber Art - something that wasn't available when I was in school. Then you can go out and create all kinds of wonderful designs of your own. It takes a little more effort, but let's face it - plagiarism is just plain tacky, and creating something new and original is a whole lot more fun and rewarding.