Once again I hosted the Scenic Valley Handweaver’s December party at the Oak and Fern Studios. It took a while to tidy up from the various random storing and work going on through the last few months in order to ready the Studio, Fairly Large Room (FLR) and other areas for guests.
This year we put a tree, revealed our new hardwood floors and hung a whole lot more pictures.
Being early December I put the 2 bar gas heater on downstairs and it had the whole area nice and warm well before the guests arrived around midday.
Everyone brought finger food of one sort or another and this year there was a lot more variety after the rather repetitive deviled egg episode of 2023! Food done it was on to the the very brief ‘informal’ meeting which took all of 10 minutes, most of which was me explaining what the 2025 challenge will be – not too many complaints and will post more detail in February when it kicks off. Then the ‘guest challenge’ began – which was modified slightly to be NOT directly associated with weaving, spinning, fiber, equipment, etc – to give partners who may not be fiber people themselves, a better chance at the prize. Guests had to match a question with the number of the piece of art on the wall that contained the answer. It turns out my expectation of ‘this will be easy’ was not quite so!! The winner was Larry with 12 out of the 18.
The gift exchange kicked into action after that and there was a little bit of ‘stealing’ going on, but as the presents were all top notch again most people were happy with their first pick. A bit of intermingling followed and some long goodbyes and we had the place to ourselves again.
Roll on 2025 and a party at some other studio, although I think that is unlikely with this crowd!!