My First Craft Fair

After 3 months of knitting like crazy (or as crazy as you can when you can't put down the steampunk series you just discovered), I managed to produce a decent handful of stuffed toys. It wasn't nearly as many as I had hoped to fill my table space, but fortunately I had a plentiful stash of previously unsold items to display - a few tops, scarves, shawls, and hats to show off my range of ability and style.

I also spent several hours putting together a portfolio of my best work, since commissions have always been my best source of sales.

The sale was in the church basement directly after the service, so for the first hour, we had a built-in stream of customers in an exit-through-the-gift-shop kind of way. I made two sales and lined up a commission very quickly, and then a visit from friends garnered a third sale. And then, as the congregation made their way home, I eagerly awaited the dozens of people who would surely make the trip to our little tucked away corner of Hillsboro for such an event.

The hours crawled by. The kids of vendors popped in and out but rarely was the sound of the basement door opening accompanied by the appearance of an actual customer. By the time 3 o'clock rolled around, I hadn't made any more sales, and I had an awful lot more to pack up and take home than I had expected.

Despite the dismal turnout, I could hardly have asked for a better "practice fair." The cost of my table space was a percentage of my sales rather than a flat fee, so there was no risk of losing money. Most of the customers already knew me, so they weren't (visibly) annoyed by my embarrassing lack of business cards or shopping bags. There was a ready supply of coffee and snacks, for which I was especially grateful since I had entirely forgotten to bring a lunch. The woman who won my hat in the raffle was adorably gleeful and didn't take the it off for the rest of the time she was there.

 And a special shoutout to my husband, who was not only endlessly supportive and helpful while I was knitting and agonizing over inventory and pricing, but took care of the kids the whole time I was at my table, shuttling them home from church and back again to pick me up. And then sprang for beer and gyros. What a guy. ^_^

I had hoped to walk away with more cash and less yarn, but all in all, it was an exhausting, educational, and most certainly memorable experience.

Muppet Scarf

A few months ago, in a raffle at my monthly CGOA guild meeting, I won some of the most truly hideous yarn I have ever had uglying up my stash. Now, I was not attempting to win this yarn. Unfortunately, it was attached to a crochet pattern book that I *did* in fact want to win, badly enough that I had put all my raffle tickets in for just that one prize. And I did win that book. Hooray!

But I also won two skeins of dark orange Sirdar Snowflake and a whole mess of skeins of popsicle blue and pale pink fun fur.

The fun fur I will probably, eventually, either unload on the gracious people at Goodwill, or on someone who actually thinks fun fur is, well, fun.

As for the Snowflake, I haven't been able to escape the notion that this yarn looks like the wool of some unlucky orange muppet, and that someone, somewhere, will thoroughly enjoy wearing a long furry scarf that looks like it was vomited up by Sesame Street. So, to that end, I pulled out my biggest circular tips - let's do this as quickly as possible, shall we? - and got to work. Plain ol' garter stitch, 20 stitches across, on the size 11's, seems to be producing a nice, fluffy, airy... dark orange muppet pelt.