Once ‘Regency Romance’ had been put to bed, my next focus was on making a variety of stock items and preparing for the craft fair to be held at the local high school on July the 1st.
I came home from work and sewed every evening.
I beaded thrifted silk scarves:
Created more sea glass pieces with green glass:
These became cards…
…and this one was mounted onto a canvas.
I used some free gift buttons from a recent issue of ‘Mollie Makes’ magazine to make some more quick cards:
They’re stitched onto samples of silk matka fabric with silk thread.
This one is made with a scrap of lace and some hand dyed fabric from the creative and talented Karen at Stitching Life.
I made another couple of felted spiral brooches:
and added more felted pebbles, some felt and crazy patchwork hangings, some beaded earrings and a felt flower pendant.
On the Saturday I got together all the things I thought I would possibly need to dress my stall, labelled, tagged and priced and packed everything up for the Sunday. I felt I had priced my goods competitively, I had a range of items from £1 upwards and I was quietly confident.
On Sunday morning I arrived in good time and set up. Apologies for these photos, taken on my camera phone indoors, but it hopefully gives an idea of the range of what I made and how it all looked.
By the end of the day I had sold three items, totalling £10.
I don’t think it was that I had overpriced my stuff – it just didn’t attract any attention – only one person looked at the silk scarves and no one showed any interest in any of the sea glass pieces. People just walked past without a glance.
I suspect some of it was to do with the demographic of the punters. It wasn’t a purely craft fair in the end and most of the people who came were parents etc. from the school’s catchment area. It simply wasn’t their type of thing.
That said, it was still very demoralising, especially after I had worked so hard to create a wide range of items for sale on top of a very busy and stressful day job, the new production for SLTC and trying to run a family!
As a result I just couldn’t face picking up a needle for several weeks. And the next project was looming: ‘Cycle Song’ and the Brumby Bash.
Under A Topaz Sky 