Craft Fair

I did my first 'proper' craft fair on Sunday just gone. It was at the gorgeous old building of Victoria Baths just a mile or so from Manchester city centre. I didn't sell much ( a piece of rainbow felt, 3 bookmarks, a credit card holder, a felted soap, a coin pouch and a heart shaped ring pouch) but I did pay for the cost of the stall, and I did meet a lot of nice people. A wet/needlefelt artist had a stall in the row behind mine, she had lots of nice pieces, but I didn't get her details. Maggie was upstairs, she had a lot of nice felt pieces and had been felting for a long time, and she sold me some dyed flax for a bargain price! This is Maggie's stall:

She had some gorgeous woven and cobweb scarves:

Opposite the end of my row was Jude. She does pretty much everything! From washing raw fleece, to dyeing it mostly with natural dyes, spinning it up into gorgeous yarns and then knitting it into amazing shawls and hats. She also felts and does workshops teaching her many skills. This was Jude's stall, unfortunately I didn't get a photo of her spinning wheel.

These are some of her yarns. I think she said her dad turned the bowls himself. Just disappearing to the right are some needlefelted sheep with hand dyed locks:

My stall was a lot neater when I first set it out, but I only took photos nearer the end. This is most of it:

And this is the other end:

If anyone has been put off doing a craft fair because of lack of transport, I thought I'd show you how I took my things. You might remember my 'granny' trolley from a post last year, that is what I used to take everything to the fair in. I used a large 'document' box, and a couple of shoe boxes. This is the smallest shoe box I used:

In this I had 7 pieces of felt.

This is the second shoe box I used:

In this I had all my greetings cards, handmade felted soap, a receipt book, some business cards, a couple of mirror cases, a glasses case, ring pouch, coaster and lots of bookmarks.

The document box, which came flat and cost 70p from Ikea, measures 10 inches high, 10 inches deep and is 13 inches wide.

In this I managed to fit: 3 large gadget sleeves; 22 phone/camera sized cases; 2 glasses cases; 13 credit card and coin pouches; 5 purses; 3 slim gadget cases; 6 A5 notebooks and 8 A6 notebooks. I think I had even more in it on the way there!

I did have a small shopping bag with the table cloth cover, some paper bags and my woolly vessell in, but almost everything else was in the trolley.

Texture

A while ago Marilyn, from the Felting and Fibre Studio sent me some fibres, one of them being some Domestic 56s wool tops, I tried them out on a texturey piece I made, mostly for the base, but also to add some texture between the base and top layer of 18.5 mic Merino. I liked the way it felted, similar to our English 56s.

I also used some Bluefaced Leicester Noil between the 2 layers. This is lower across the surface:

Some of the embellishment fibres I used were soy staple fibre, viscose and flax:

I also used milk and bamboo.

This photo taken from above looks strange, whichever way I rotate it, it always looks upside down!

Don't forget if you're around Manchester next Sunday, Victoria Baths on Hathersage road has a craft fair, with 50 stalls. I'll be there as long as a wheel doesn't fall off my trolley between now and then :)

I'm Doing a Craft Fair

I've only done one little fair before, but I did enjoy it, so I'm really looking forward to doing this one. It is in Sunday 6th July 2014 at Victoria Baths on Hathersage Road, Manchester. Not far from Manchester Royal Infirmary. Doors Open at 12 noon until 4pm, and it costs £2.50 or £3 with Gift Aid. There are 50 stalls, so there's sure to be something for everyone. If I haven't got there first ;)

Here's the back of the flyer

I'll see you there :)

Craft Fair and Some New Pieces

I did my first craft fair on Saturday. It was only a small one, the nice people at the LGBT Centre in Manchester asked me if I'd like to take a few things to sell between the Carol Service and Christmas Dinner at their Festive Funday. For the past couple of weeks I've done a lot of blanket stitching, a lot of printing and a lot of cutting out of tags and business cards. And who'd have thought writing and attaching tags could take a whole day?!
I didn't think to ask what size the table would be and not knowing which items might be popular, I decided to take pretty much everything I've ever made! Ann from The Felting and Fiber Studio talked about getting ready for a show a few weeks ago, well I don't drive, so I have to walk or get public transport everywhere, so over the last couple of years I've relied on my 'granny trolley' to cart things about:

Using a shoe box, old toaster box and a couple of smaller cradboard boxes, I managed to fit in: 7 x A5 Diaries/notebooks;  8 x A6 notebooks; 3 x iPad/gadget cases; 10 x camera cases; 6 x glasses cases; 4 x credit card cases/pouches; 9 x coin pouches;  7 x coin purses/wallets; 2 x mirror cases; 2 x ring pouches; 4 x placemats/coasters; 23 bookmarks; 4 x felt pieces; 2 x shoulder bags and a woolly vessel. I think I took too many things! This is one of the diary covers I finished in time for the fair:

This is an iPad case. I was going to use the felt for a diary cover, but it didn't shrink as much as I expected, so I searched online for the dimensions of the most popular tablets and made this. It has rainbow felt on the front and back and also a piece of neoprene stitched to the back:

This is another piece of felt I made last week. I made two the same, and sold one at the fair:

It was a great experience doing the fair and I met so many nice people and got lots of compliments. Although it was only on for about an hour I managed to sell more things than I have in the last 9 months on etsy :) I'm looking forward to my next one.