Craft Fair Part 2

So one craft fair is done this year, two more to come.  The next one is in two weeks.

The one we just finished, A Community Affair, has been going on for over 30 years.  I can't remember if they said '32nd' or '37th'... they kind of sound the same.  I can't say enough about the helpful staff and the wonderful organizers!  They made us feel welcome, they had lots of helpers there to wheel in your stuff or bring you chairs, and they had runners to deliver lunch orders and coffee, and even desserts in the afternoon!

The crowd was fair-to-middlin' as they used to say.  I thought there were too many lulls but maybe that's how it goes when it's drizzly and cold.  There were a lot of people who walked by our table, admired, and walked on. 

 

I thought we had awesome stuff!!  Our booth was very attractive...

...although it was crowded because our booth partner had big stuff, those are deco-mesh wreaths.

 

We had everything from dresses and sweaters to doll jewelry.

 

Socks and slippers and mittens...

 

Sleeping bags and pillows...

 

And robes and PJs... and that's a basket of tutus.

 

Who knows what people are going to want and what they're not... we sold no robes, one dress and one tutu!  We had adorable leggings to go under the tutus.  People bought the leggings...

 

What went?  I have to do a final inventory but we sold sweaters, slippers, PJs, sleeping bags and pillows.  Oh, and hats.  Lots of hats!

 

We were competing with three other vendors selling doll items.  They weren't exactly alike, but one vendor had made hundreds of party dresses and fancy coats and costumes.  She said she was disappointed in sales but I have no idea what she was measuring that against.  Another woman had lots of doll furniture and some sports-themed stuff... Badgers and Packers.  She also expressed dismay at her sales.

 

There were lots of people walking by with no packages, but we weren't near the exit so maybe they bought once they passed us.

 

The two extremes:  The woman next to us sold NOTHING.  Not a blessed thing, all day.  And the woman across the way was selling little people made out of old cans like there was no tomorrow.

 

We did OK... that is we made enough to earn back the registration fees, pay for lunch, and take home a respectable amount split between us.  I wish it had been more, but oh well.  I just enjoyed myself a whole lot in spite of it!

 

We did learn a few things... we need to get some better display racks, since ours kept falling over.  We need to get our own booth; sharing a space with someone selling other merchandise cramps our style and doesn't allow us to display to our best advantage. 

 

And despite our best efforts to colorize and make 'outfits', little girls will always want the red, white and blue sweater with a pink hat. 

 

Our inventory is pretty good for the sale coming up in two weeks.   Maybe this weekend I can finally get to sewing something for myself!

 

Sew on...

 

Ready for the Craft Fair

What have you been doing since I posted last?  Did you miss me?

I have been a busy person...

At work we had our Fiscal Year End on October 3.  This year end is not to be confused in any way with any type of Happy New Year.  For a week, the finance people shut the systems down, and we're expected to finalize all our numbers without it.  I pulled together many reports for people who needed to adjust something or fix something or make something go away or come back.

Then hubby and I celebrated 43 years of wedded bliss.  Well, celebrated may be too strong a word.  We were both sick with whatever kind of crud is going through the school system, courtesy of our middle school grand.   

We spent the evening partially in the pharmacy staring at all the choices.

 

 None of them worked very well.  I lost a whole weekend like this:

 

 Went through at least three boxes of these...

 

 And a whole lot of this:

I'm better now but DH is still coughing some.  Of course you know whatever HE gets is SO much worse than anything I get.  His is always a situation of 'critical condition'...

Then I work on my craft fair stuff.  I think I'm ready for this weekend.  We're setting up on Friday night and opening Saturday at 9 a.m.  The show is called A Community Affair.  It's in Menomonee Falls, WI, so if you're in the neighborhood, stop by.

I'm furiously knitting tiny slippers, but here's my bin... can you see my feet at the side of the picture?  Well, maybe it's my legs.  The plastic bag is full of knee socks.  I have dresses on hangers, pants, sweaters, tees and leggings, PJs... I hope I have enough to last for three sales.  If not I know what I'll be doing at night instead of sleeping!

 

Here is our door prize:

 

A pink robe and PJs at the left, a little hat, sweater and mittens with a denim skirt, and a pillow and sleeping bag.  If I get a pair of slippers done to match the robe I'm sticking that in there too.  Total value around $50.

I'm trying to sew some Christmas dresses, some more tee shirts, and maybe a few more sets of pajamas for winter, with flannel bottoms and long sleeved tops.  I know dolls don't care, but moms do and they're the ones who are buying!

Sew on...

Some Sewing Got Done...

I've had the pleasure of a couple of days off work recently.  I did some housecleaning (yuck) and some shopping (not yuck!) and some catching up with medical appointments, etc.  But I did get a chance to spend some quality time in my sewing studio.

It's been kind of hard to be inside this week.  The weather, always iffy in the Midwest, was lovely.  Nice cool mornings and warm sunny afternoons.  Except for a few small rain showers and a bit of wind it was a great weekend!

My bin of doll items for the craft sales is filling up!  I have to scrounge up some buttons for a few more doll sweaters and put the finishing touches on a few other items but I'm feeling very prepared!  Anything additional that gets done will be gravy.



Sweater that needs buttons -- self striping sock yarn.

Fleece hats.  Zebra is always a hit.

I made at least a dozen little dresses like this.

There are dresses with a holiday theme!

And printed denim jeans...

I love this fabric!

Pajamas!

Denim skirts and sweaters...

I'm using my favorite fabrics and the stuff is turning out so well!

Mix and match PJ bottoms...

And tee shirt tops!

The first show is called A Community Affair and it's in Menomonee Falls, WI on October 18.  Hopefully it's a good show, and I can sell enough of these little items to earn back my registration fee!

We will have more variety and more items.  My business partner is knitting ponchos, making little hat/scarf/mitten sets with fleece, and some fleece robes to go with my PJs.  I've also made a couple dozen pairs of doll socks to match some of the dresses.  Those are fun, but I didn't take any photos.

We were going to make some doll Halloween costumes too, but the best laid plans sometimes go awry.  She did make some tutus and some aprons.   And we enlisted the help of the grands to make little necklace and bracelet sets.  Too cute!

Now if I could just make my own stuff this fast!  I did pull out a pattern for some pants for myself, and went so far as to prewash some fabric. 

Maybe next week... lol!

Sew on...

If I Were A Better Blogger...

I was reading some favorite blogs and thinking about how great some of them are at being instructive and showing their work... I love those blogs (and those bloggers).

Here's what happens to me:  I think about something I want to write about, something that happened, something that I want to save to remember, and then I think, oh gosh, I should have taken a picture of that while I was doing it.

I have a camera or two at home and one in my phone.  I usually have the phone here:



Bottom drawer of my desk, phone in the pocket.  Or next to the back door... to grab on my way out.

I am not into selfies... believe me, the fewer pictures that exist of me, the happier I am.  I could lose a few dozen pounds.  But taking pictures of my work in progress, well, I guess I am not a photographer because I'm usually so busy doing that I forget about recording.

Tonight I was thinking about my craft fair stuff and about how my selling point for the doll clothes is that they're garment quality fabric and well made, machine washable and they will stand up to a lot of play.  How do you illustrate that? 

When you buy clothes, do you look inside to see how well they are made?  I do.  After being burned by garments whose hems get wavy upon washing, or where the seams are so tiny they pull out, I always look inside.  I have a lovely jacket from Coldwater Creek that pulled apart in a back seam, and I am struggling to figure out how to fix that, but that's another blog.  (If I remember to shoot pics while I'm doing it!!)

When making small things, you use a correspondingly small seam allowance.  Instead of sewing and trimming you just cut smaller.  A doll's armhole is only about 2-3 inches long, and the curve is quite sharp.  So when I sew dresses, instead of using facings I will cut double front and back bodices, then sew each one separately only at the shoulder seams, leaving the side seams open.  I put them right sides together and sew up the center back, around the neck and down the other side.  Then I sew both armholes.  Then I CAREFULLY clip into the curves up to but not through the stitching.

Since I didn't take any pictures of this process, I made some VERY crude drawings... I'm sure you can find some much better pictures on YouTube somewhere if you don't understand what I've got here...

This actually says "1/4 inch seam allowance, flat bodices right sides together. and it's #1 in the circle.

 Then I turn the piece right side out through the bottom of the bodice front.  I press very carefully because the pieces are so small and you can burn your fingers.  Well, I can...

The paper says Wrong side, honestly, I can spell. 

 The result is that you have a bodice with all curved edges enclosed.  I then turn it back inside out and put the side seams right sides together and sew up the lining and down the right side on each side and press that.  That's in illustration 2 above.  See my arrows with the sewing direction on them??  ;-)  You are sewing the front and back together at this point, but you're sewing lining to lining and bodice to bodice  -- bodice first, up over the armhole seam and down the lining, or vice versa.

Sew the top to the skirt by putting the top inside the skirt right sides together.  Sew the skirt to the bodice but not to the lining.  Ugh, my scanner!!

 

After pressing and turning right side out again, I put the top, right side of bodice against the right side of the skirt.  The skirt will be inside out at this point.  If it's a gathered skirt, I pin the heck out if it to keep it together and to keep the gathers smooth.  I also make sure the lining is pulled away from where I'm sewing so it doesn't get caught.  These pieces are SMALL so go slowly and carefully!

Insert the waistline seam into the bodice...that last word is topstitch.

 

The last step is to tuck down the bodice lining, fold it over and topstitch it to the skirt.  Depending upon how much is showing between the lower armhole and the top of the skirt, I may turn under a little more than a quarter inch for this seam.  And because I hate messy, I like this method that covers up all the raw edges. 

 

Here it is in real life:

 

This one I stitched down by hand because I didn't have the right color yellow thread... but it looks good that way too!

You can sew by machine on the wrong side or the right side, but it's more accurate from the wrong side.  The right side looks fine!

 

 Another way of enclosing seams is to add some trim.  On this lined dress I used the same method on the top (without all the fussy turning because this one has tie straps), then I sewed trim to both layers, folded it under and stitched it down.

 

On this little top, I did one layer.  I stitched  on the ruffle, but the raw edges show on the inside... not that most of the little girls will notice but I noticed.  Next time i do this I will use my serger... and see that thread?

 

 

This is where it ended up:

 

That's the leg of my jeans.

I hope you enjoyed my pathetic efforts at a tutorial!  Maybe next time I will remember my camera.

 

Sew on...

 



Getting Ready for the Craft Fair Season

A little while ago I asked the question 'where did the summer go?'  I'm starting to PANIC!!

I made a deal with a couple of friends to go into three craft fairs this fall.  Three!!  OMG What Was I Thinking?? 

OK, they're in three different months.  There is some space between them.  I made a rule for myself, one day fairs where the cost to me would be below $50.  You have to sell a lot of $5 items to make that back and show a profit....  And no driving many miles to get there, it has to be in the counties touching the one I live in.  I can't/don't want to add the cost of a hotel room to the mix.

Good plan, right?  And the first one isn't until October.

October!  It's almost September now!

I checked my doll clothing stock.  I have been doing things all along but I put it all in a box and don't think about it again.  Well I guess I'd better start thinking about it!

I put some things up on the design wall, in outfits.  The girls and their moms/grandmoms want things that go together.  I learned last year that you can't just lay out the jeans and tops, you have to put them in sets. 

I need some kind of top to go with that blue and white skirt on the bottom.



The aqua and green striped top, the green top and one pink top came from discarded adult tee shirts.

This is a portion of what was in the box from spring and summer.

I added some other things....



The denim skirt is made from the leg of a pair of jeans worn out by my DH.



I made these patterns up as I went along... wish I had made some notes!



Dresses can be made from scraps, they just take a quarter of a yard each.

These and a few other pieces are all done... I have to sew some tops for the multiple number of jeans and denim skirts I made.  I have multiples of the white pants and skirts too.

I was digging in my stash of tee shirt knits, I need to supplement with some pastel colors, specifically pink and blue plus maybe yellow.  The pajama pants need some tops.  I made some adorable zebra fleece hats and scarves but didn't take pictures. 

My friend Carol and I are working on a plan... our color scheme is pink-purple-aqua-bright green, with denim and red tossed in for good measure.  She's making some things, like robes and aprons, and I'm making others, like the tee shirts and pajamas.  Hopefully when we get together to take inventory, we'll be working on the same plan!  She's working independently so we haven't compared notes yet.  Fingers crossed!

I am a little worried that after the October fair, I'll need to restock and there are only three weeks between that one and the one we're doing in November.  So I'm cutting out huge stacks of basic things like denim skirts and white tee shirts, and I'll keep sewing until it's all done.  Or until I get sick of it?? 

My youngest grand has her eye little on the black and white knit dress in the picture at the top, and this sweater...

I'd make another one, but the reason it has three colors in it is that I ran out of the main color after partway through.  In my sizable yarn stash I have many things that were close, but not close enough!  So I frog stitched it back to half of the yoke, added the other colors, and used the tiny bit that was left over for the base of the hat.  I guess I could do one with different shades of peach or maybe pink and give her this one for Christmas!

I asked my sewing grand if she'd be willing to help me... maybe she could sew some simple pieces like pants, or do hems or something.  She's thinking it over.  I guess she's not motivated to earn any extra cash right now!  But she did offer to make some doll jewelry...  we'll see.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... I wish making clothes for myself was this easy!

Sew on...

Craft Fair Debrief

I participated in my second craft fair last Saturday and I am happy to say it went very well. I may have gotten over the aversion to doing them! OK, no guarantees, the jury is still out on that one.

The show filled a nearby middle school cafeteria, two gyms and the hallways. Carol and I chose a hallway since we thought the traffic would help her sell her jewelry. As it turns out, the traffic was probably the same in all locations but the booth size was better for us in the hall... except for the crazy neighbor we had it was really good. Why do people dress the way they do to go out in public? Let me say two words: gray sweatpants.



See the tiny mittens?  Carol said the first eight or nine pairs were fun to sew but then they got annoying.  Well that's more than I made!!

 So the show cost me $37.50 in table fee and the gas to drive over to the next town, which was not far. I figured since most of my materials are left over from previous projects, my cost of goods isn't much, it's mostly my time. And since I have to do SOMETHING while sitting with DH who is watching sports or bad TV, it was a good investment. (Yes, most of you know what I'm talking about -- how many golf matches can you stand?? And mine is addicted to Food TV!)

I filled a card table top and three feet of a six foot table with doll outfits, scarves I knit, and some little bags I made last year, the kind you tuck into your purse with a tube of lipstick and your sewing kit inside.

I sold a few things in the morning, but lots of people were looking and not buying. We figured they were scoping out the place and making mental lists. Carol had her earrings and necklaces, some pretty cowl scarves she knitted, and she made a bunch of American Girl doll mitten sets plus some scarves and hats.

At around noon, the Pompom Squad girls were around with lunch menus and order sheets. Hot dog meals, brat meals and sodas. We chose brats. They were delivered by the same girls a bit later. How cool was that? We tipped them and they giggled like crazy.

Later there were more shoppers, and we sold all the doll mittens, all the knitted doll hats, all the doll sweaters we had, the Packer shirt/pants, and five of the six pairs of pajamas. It's funny, I thought the pjs and slippers would go together, but not all did. The big color at this event was red. Last time it was pink. I guess you never know, do you?

Our models... We had to pin a tag on the dolls saying "Dolls not for sale"!  Check out the leopard mittens on the doll's hand, and the matching vest on the table.  Yep, we sold ALL of those!

I had some crazy socks that I made from kid socks.  Those did not go.  I should have made white ones, or red ones, or matched them to the dresses and skirts.  I made green to match our purchased Girl Scout outfit and left them on the doll.  Logistical error -- people did NOT like them!

I started out with a sixteen inch by sixteen inch by 14 inch deep basket full of items.  I came back with about 25% of what I took.  I am a happy person!  I also got two inquiries from people who want to commission special items... and several questions about where I will be next.  (We'll see about that!)

The weirdest thing to me was that these little Christmas dresses didn't sell.  I guess little girls and their moms/grammas were looking for full skirts?  Or maybe long sleeves since it was SO COLD on Saturday!  So these little gems came home with me.

Carol sold two pairs of earrings and two scarves in addition to her mittens. 

I hope she will forgive me for doing well...

Sew on!

Ready for the Craft Fair!

Here's a sample of what's going to be available from my table at the Midnight Magic Craft Sale tomorrow:

If you're in the neighborhood stop on over. Google "Midnight Magic Mukwonago"

Sew on...