On Saturday I, along with immense help from Erik, participated in my first craft fair.
We started the day like any important day–with a big breakfast at our local diner, The Carousel Cafe. (I got french toast… again.) Then off to set up on our one little table. My, oh my, did we learn a lot!
1) I need better displays. My table was cluttered. My garment rack threatened to tip over in the soft sand, so I had to tie it up. There wasn’t nearly enough space alloted to each vendor, so I had to put my rack in front of my table, with then blocked half of my table. I’m going to look into getting some peg board and building some racks.
2) I need (want very much) a pop up tent. Although there were nice big tents, the tables were lined up on the edges of them. Customers got to walk down the center in the shade. We got to sit in the sun all day. Erik rigged up a bit of temporary shade for us, but it only worked for a little while before the sun had moved again. A pop up tent would also help with problem number 1, because I could use it as a display aide.
3) I need signs. I knew I needed these, and I just didn’t have time to make them ahead of time. Nobody knew what my pincushions were. (Um… I guess nobody here sews?) Not many people knew what "vintage" meant either.
Despite my table’s definite shortcomings, we made enough that we could go out to dinner and celebrate afterwards. We got a couple cute goodies while we were there, too. Erik bought a really cute fleece scarf for Olga with Scottie dogs on it. I bought her a pair of socks with crocheted trim from this talented lady. And Erik bought me a project bag made out of old cammies. The man knows me… he said it looked like just the right size to hold a small knitting project. He pinned one of his old name tapes on the pocket for me. I love it!
There are two more craft fairs (that I know about) coming up. One in November at the Elks Lodge, and one in December on base again. I’m going to work on solving the above problems, then I’m going to go for it!
Yesterday, to wind down from all the excitement on Saturday, I knit two little hats. One is for Gavin, and the little one is just right for Olga’s dolly. The yellow yarn is KnitPicks Wool of the Andes. The green is a little bit of leftover yarn from a soaker I knit a couple years ago for a swap. It’s from Little Turtle Knits. The tiny bit of varigated orange/yellow/green was a precious little scrap of Polwarth wool I got during a trip to Manitoba, Canada when Olga was a baby.
