Every year my class and I demonstrate in our town at the end of festival street fair. We are always inside and have shared the hall in the past with the local ham radio enthusiasts (very noisy), displays of old photos of the town, medieval food demonstrations, beer and cider tasting (very worried about a large plastic beaker cracking as they hover over the lace!) and the worst ever many years ago on a day of torrential rain when everyone wanted to leave their bedraggled children with us and then the fire eater did his show! Oh the horror of big black smuts floating round the hall - let alone the damp crowds! Never has the display been brought down so fast.
To display we have propped displays up on the next to the wall and spread over an old duvet cover on the table. Most pieces are pinned to the cover and I don't believe we have ever lost a piece. We do have the occasional touchers but as there is always someone at the table we can watch. We have a couple of have-a-go pillows with the fish on as we discovered youngsters would block the pillows by insisting on finishing their snakes so we just do the head now and call it a fish, speeds up the queue! Photos of the display can be seen at http://community.webshots.com/user/lazydaisy25?vhost=community We have done this for years now and because of the other displays we get good visibility to people who may otherwise not bother to come and see us and we are always by the door where they can't miss us. We have got many new lace makers through this. We have also taken part in the local parish church Christmas tree festival over the past few years. We only put pieces of lace on the tree that we don't mind losing. We have had a tree with just white decorations, one with bangle style decorations and a lace tools tree which included pretty but cheap wooden bobbins that had been handed on to us, threads, a pair of scissors etc. None of the bits were ones we minded losing but nothing went. Got to think of a theme for this year. We use a little black tree with plain white lights and it's great fun. No new lacemakers have come through this but an awful lot of people go to see the trees so it keeps us in their minds. Lynne Baldock, Nth Herts UK Where the sun is shining but it's definitely autumnal - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
