I have another craft fair tomorrow, and I’m excited. I thought I’d share with you all my checklist for an outdoor show. It’s pretty comprehensive.
Tag: craft fair
Craft Shows
I decided to participate in my first craft show in November of 2016. It was a school show, and I enjoyed myself. That being said, I didn’t have any ready-made items, and I never did receive any orders. I was already full on Christmas orders, and I didn’t have time to take on any more. I figured I would get my orders from that school once graduation season came around.
Nope.
But it was so much fun I decided to try again in the Spring at a craft fair that was much closer to home. I did have ready-made items this time – the stadium quilts. Well, it turns out folks don’t want to buy flannel-backed quilts in weather that is in the upper 80’s F. I ended up getting only one order from that show – many months later.
But the fairs themselves were awesome! It’s an ego boost because I get to hear people gush over my work and talk about my love of quilting for a whole day! This in mind, I decided to give it one more go. There was a huge show in the fall, and I decided to try it. I would use this show as the gauge on whether or not I would keep on doing these. As fun as they were, they weren’t paying off.
Well the fall one was a completely different experience. People bought stuff! I sold three quilts along with wallets and casserole carriers! I. Was. Stoked. I’d also squeezed in another smaller show that fall, and I managed to sell the Braves quilt! So yeah, I was pretty jazzed that the fall ones had paid off after all. And the BEST part was that for both of the fall shows I had a t-shirt quilt order placed within 24 hours of the show.
This past weekend I tried another spring show, and I was floored at how well I did, especially considering the crowd was mostly my fellow church members. I wanted to cry I was so happy and honored and flattered.
Next weekend I’m going to give a craft fair another try – the same one that was so hot the year before. I have new items and am hoping that I do well. Wish me luck!
Related blogs and posts:
Craft Shows – Mi casita; Mi ranchito
Stories from a Day at a Craft Show!
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Star Wars Quilts: Episode 1
A while back I wanted to use up some of my blue fabric from my fabric stash since the drawer was overflowing. My son had recently asked for a Star Wars quilt, so I decided to take care of both challenges at the same time.
Fast forward to the fall of that year, and I am participating in a rather large craft fair – one of the largest I’d done. I find out my booth is on the corner, and I panic because I simply can’t have the side of my booth be the backs of the quilts hanging up on the inside. I needed something to hang on the outside of the booth, but I’d sold a couple of quilts on Etsy that would have done the job. I ran upstairs and asked my little buddy if I could borrow his Star Wars quilt for the show. He’s such a good sport and didn’t hesitate to agree. I placed it on the outside, and the visibility was excellent.
When I placed his quilt up, I expected it to gain some attention, but I wasn’t prepared for how much attention it would garner. My booth neighbor behind me said that everyone who passed by her booth was talking about the Star Wars quilt. I had several people ask about what it would cost to make one for them since I had a “Not for Sale” tag on my son’s. I joked that if he wasn’t in charge of my end-of-life decisions I could have sold that quilt three times that day. So it seemed a no-brainer that I would make one to sell after that show.
It didn’t hurt that I still had a lot of blue fabric left over from previous projects, gifted to me, or rescued from remnant bins. The first thing I did was to get out all the blue fabric I intended on using and placed it in the order I wanted.
After that, I cut them all into 3.5″ strips.
From there, I sewed the strips end-to-end and rolled them up on an empty tissue holder. The final radius of that roll was 4.25″.
There’s not much new in the quilting world in regards to techniques, but I *might* be the first person I know of to use what I call the “chair technique”. I had my husband video the beginning of the process.
From here, I sewed together the strips into pairs so as to make organizing easier.
It was here I realized I had much more than the original twin-size quilt goal. In fact, I had exactly enough strips cut to make TWO twin-sized quilts. I laid everything out and then picked up every other strip segment; this helped in that my strips were still going in order from lightest to darkest, allowing the silhouettes to be mostly in the lighter fabric.
I decided that I would make one with the original Luke and Darth Vader silhouettes like I had for my son, but the second one would be linked to the newest film and feature Rey and Kylo Ren.
Stayed tuned tomorrow for Episode 2.
Related posts and blogs:
Katy Quilts: Finish it Up Thursday
Aby Quilts: Star Wars Quilt Finished!
Quest Quilts 
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