Its all about the end of the month in this post.
November brings the Knitting and stitching show in Harrogate and I went for a visit on Thursday, with a friend.
The first person we saw was the one I wanted to see the most, the delightful and extremely talented Michala Gyetvai, who I've know from blogging and flickr almost from the start of my internet life!
I was dying to see her recent work, inspired by landscape and trees and influenced by a recent trip to India.
Some of her pieces are huge and intensely stitched. If you want to see more of her work visit her website and blog.
It was a pleasure to meet her.
I also met up with Julie, Wendy and their friend Tina.
We arranged to meet and I was having my lunch when I saw Wendy I swallowed a big piece of my sandwich so I could say hello, and proceeded to choke.
Fortunately Wendy was a dab hand..or should I say a dab fist, at thumping on the back, which she did and saved my life. Honest! I was choking. SO embarrassing.
We had a laugh about it...but I was quite shaken.
I met a few other textiley friends including Kim Thittichai, Sue Dove, Angie Hughes, Clare Bullock, and Wyn Ingham.
I'd had enough of the whole stall thing by 3.30 though. I'm getting a bit jaded.
I went out into the fresh air and did a bit of shopping.
Talking of fresh air...at the weekend I did craft fair in The Palm House, Sefton Park, Liverpool.
Its an amazing huge Victorian Glass house.
When I arrived I had no idea whether my stand would be in the Palm House or in the Marquee next door. It turned out I was in the Palm house and I was mighty glad because it was cold and windy on Saturday.
Its a stupendous venue and in theory a good place for a craft fair.
I had a perfect spot and met some truly great makers.
But sadly, not enough buyers of my work.
The weather had put a lot of people off I think, and perhaps my work was not right for this event. Such a contrast to Woolfest and Yarndale where I almost ran out of brooches.
By Sunday the winds had got up and after about an hour the people with stands in the marquee had to leave. There were huge gusts and the whole place resounded with noise of the wind against the glass. Trees were being blown over in the park, so the organisers made the difficult but very sensible decision to close.
Rather a pity as I'd sold as much in the first two hours on Sunday as I'd sold all day Saturday.
I'm having a rethink about Craft Fairs.
Even the beautiful ones.
Now I'm going back in time to earlier in the month and in the last post I showed you the birds,
Well, I made lots more (for the craft fair) and had a little play with them for photographing.
And today I put all the ones I didn't sell at the weekend (which was nearly all of them!) into my etsy shop.
Here they are peeping and ready to fly.
And indeed many of them have flown today in my own online craft fair.
If you'd like to join in I'm giving 20% discount with the coupon code VALENTINE.
Now...if you don't know how to enter a coupon code here's a picture that might help. Do you see where it says 'apply shop coupon code' ? Click that
and you get this.
Put the code in the box and click apply.
Just so you know!
There are other things in the shop besides birds.
Selling fast.
I'm having a big rest from sewing now and going to tidy up so there may not be any more.
9 comments:
I'm so sorry that the craft show didn't go well - it seems the weather was a lot of the reason. It has to be disappointing when you worked so hard to get ready. Craft shows can be fickle things - one year you will do exceedingly well and the next the bottom falls out - for no apparent reason. Done that, been there and no longer do the dance.
As MM has said above, Craft Fairs are indeed fickle. I now only do ones with added value for me - like FolkEsat where I get to a pass for the festival weekend for me and my husband or the village bazaar where I'm there as the eccentric local artist and to catch up on hearing the local gossip.
So frustrating when you've made so much effort but I am very envious that you got to see inside the Palm House. Just over a week ago I was standing outside the iron gates having walked the length of Sefton Park in the wind and rain especially to see it! (If you pop over to my blog you'll see why I was passing by). I also saw posters about the Craft Fair and wished it was on the day we we were there.
Those birds are fab!
xx
I am not surprised you are having a rest after all that. Such a shame that the weather spoiled the Craft Fair but good old Etsy seems to be doing it's stuff. I love the way your delightful birds are displayed like a wreath. The colour grading is spot on.
I'm only just across the water and I hadn't even heard there was a craft fair in Sefton park, so maybe they have something yet to learn about advertising. That said, the weather was so wild at the weekend, I'm amazed that anyone left home at all!
What a huge shame about the show Jackie and it's such a lovely venue for it. I gave markets/fairs a good re-think years ago and gave them away! Didn't matter what I tried I never did very well though I was always told how lovely my work is! Meanwhile a good friend of mine would always sell well. We usually shared a table it was so disheartening to see how badly I did right beside her! It was always so much hard work with the packing/unpacking/packing/unpacking! Maybe they didn't like the 'cut of my jib'! lol. I try to make it on Etsy now...sometimes good sometimes bad! :)
I so love those little birdies of yours! Just gorgeous!
All the best for a wonderful Christmas and New Year. ♥
What a pity that your beautiful display in such a lovely setting didn't produce the sales. Looks like you are getting a handle on the sort of events that are more suitable for sales though. So sad that I couldn't get to Harrogate this year but it certainly looks like you had a great time.
Just to let you know the bird brooch I bought recently had its first outing today and was much admired by my fellow lunch ladies! It looks very similar to one on the delightful photo of a circle of bird brooches. Thank you again. I am hoping you might go back to Yarndale next year as I plan to go.
Ah, now I am connecting this with your comment on my blog about the stall! I'm of the mind that selling online is always going to be a better bet, though it's nice to get out and about. And if people don't buy (not even your gorgeous birds!) then they have no right to complain when the quality of stalls goes down. Just my thoughts.
Your bird wreath is lovely! You just never know with fairs or little exhibitions, sadly we can't eat nice noises ;) At least we tried.
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