The Hall of Trees and Crafts
Each year at the Lincoln Center here in Fort Collins there is a Hall of Trees where area businesses have booths that they decorate in the latest holiday fashions. These booths are set up along the hallways of the center. In the ballrooms of the center there is a rather large craft fair. I’ve been to the hall of trees a few times in the seven years I’ve lived here but have never paid the admission to go into the craft halls. That was, until this year.
While Drew has been busy with write-ins on Wednesday nights I have been heading to my water aerobics instructor’s home to teach her to knit socks (she’s doing great, BTW). From that encounter we have several new people in my aerobics class who are also knitters. One of those gals was part of a booth there, so Susan and I decided to go check out the Hall of Crafts this year.
There were many booths with things from well designed and made jewelry to kitchy Southwestern art that tends to be popular here, to inexpensive friendly plastic lapel pins and magnetic fridge frames. I do not think I’d bother to pay the admission to go every year. There was little there that I was tempted to buy or inspired by and I suspect there is a frequent return of vendors.
There was one booth that I *loved*! It was the Elisabethan booth run by a woman from the western slope. The booth contained all kinds of recycled fashion from mittens made from felted sweaters to hats, scarves, shirts and funky skirts. With Susan’s keen haggling we both went home with new hats. It is even funnier because Susan is not a hat person, LOL! But it looked awesome on her and totally matched her outfit too. I found the booth so inspiring that I’m hoping to sew a fun and slighlty funky skirt for my sister for Christmas that will utilize a doodle of hers that I stumbled across this weekend. I have a few other ideas I suspect I’ll explore in the coming cold-weather months too.
Now if only the headaches, sore throat and cough would go away so I could make some forward progress on all these creative ideas running through my head!
