Craft Fair number one

 I attended, and survived, my first craft fair last week.  I'm really pleased that I went and I have learnt a lot from it.  It is really interesting to see what people do and don't like although I'm sure that will vary from fair to fair and day to day.....but to get face to face contact with customers was lovely and interesting too.

It was definitely worth attending but I didn't leave the night skipping with joy either.  Unfortunately numbers were down 50% from previous years and the organisers, a local school, only took half of their normal amount (from raffle, their own stalls etc) - and when I take that into account I'm pretty happy.

For some strange and organised reason I had labelled and sorted most things the night before.  A friend had very kindly offered to take Katie for me for a few hours before the fair and I had saved the extra time to do some additional, but not essential sewing, and not, thankfully, the rather vital task of packing up, working out prices and so on.  I say thankfully because early in the day Islay was sent home from school with a recurrent eye infection (she's fine again now)......so that was the end of my child-free time (although to give Islay her due she is a little less demanding than Katie - but that isn't much of a challenge!).

I made a few properly Christmassy smaller items to go alongside my bibs, baby blankets and so on.  My favourite is the clove filled Christmas Hearts.  They smell wonderful and I love the fabric which is wintry rather than overly Christmassy.  I have backed them in a beautiful deep red linen too.  I also made some hanging lavender decorations - they're an elongated diamond shape to mimic the funny long diamond/conical decorations we had when I was little.  And lastly there's some more wee robins.  I really enjoy making them.  

I have a few of each left and have listed them in my folksy shop.....with any luck I may get some more things listed some time before the end of the year!

The final new item is some tea towels. You can see them in the last of the stall photos, but I think I'll post more about them another time as I'm planning a giveaway. 

The school had asked if stall holders could contribute a raffle prize.  I made up two wee bags with a tea towel and robin in each. Hopefully they have found happy new homes.

This week is back to chaos as our refurbished sash windows are being painted but it does look as if things are coming together for our roof work to start soon which makes me very happy - I'll be even more happy when it is all done and dusted!  Grant funds, and shared responsibilities, for old buildings have their benefits but they don't half make things very very complicated and drawn out......especially for the poor person who is trying to make it happen (i.e. me!).

I hope you have some happy things to look forward to this week, even if they are chaotic happy things - and that your house is warmer than ours (open windows on sub zero days makes for pretty cold living!).