Spent

I am totally exhausted after yesterday's village market. I went down on Friday afternoon to help set up the room and probably got a little over excited because I hardly slept that night wondering (a) if I would actually sell anything and (b) if I'd get to buy the earrings and beads I liked from Lesley's stall before anyone else. I was down at the hall again before 9 on Saturday and by 10 when the market officially opened the place was buzzing, with most of the village present and lots of visitors. I should have taken more interesting photographs but only managed to snap these few before we opened and then thought about nothing but manning the stall for the next 2.5 hours. I had hoped to have a back massage or maybe some reflexology from the therapists present but I just didn't get round to it, didn't even have a coffee or try the delicious home made cakes. As well as my knitting I was selling Pam's home baked bread, wholemeal, walnut and focaccia loaves while she was running the children's corner offering removable tattoos, biscuit decorating or card making all at 50p a go. I did consider if things went badly whether I should offer a free pair of socks with every loaf but luckily it didn't come to that. I soon had my very first customer, Julie my yoga teacher who took 3 pairs of socks. After that I sold at a steady pace, taking in total £85. For those interested I priced the adult socks at £15 a pair, children's at £5 and the 6 month baby size at £2, basically material plus 100%. I had wrist and neck warmers at £7 each but none of these sold, only socks which I don't mind at all because that's what I like to knit. I'd tried to make a variety of sizes and colours but frequently got asked for particular combinations that I didn't have. I got an order for a pair if I had more of the yarn, which checking at home I did and also an enquiry for a pair spotted on the blog, so in total I sold over £100 worth, not that it was ever about profit more the confirmation that people actually wanted my stuff and would pay a reasonable sum towards my time. I had some discussion with an artist who might be interested in incorporating pieces of knitting into some of her work, she had a good stash of hand spun yarn from the Scottish islands and a separate request to run a knitting workshop later in the year for about 12 people. It may all come to nothing but it made me feel so positive and helped dispel the desire to say to people bring them back if you don't like them, if they drop to pieces etc though why I should think any of this I don't know as I've been giving my socks as presents over the years and had nothing but praise.

I have applied for stalls in September and December and said that if there is spare capacity I would be willing to help fill the hall on other dates.

I sold all Pam's bread, 18 loaves and all the organic free range eggs we had on sale or return, met some lovely people and only one person appeared shocked at the price I was charging. On the minus side I spent about £20 on the jewellery I'd had my eye on, £14 on a lovely hand woven wool wrap from our local care community that is run on the principles of Rudolph Steiner and £5 on a gourmet venison pie for Mr FF who was in charge of car parking and traffic management. Quite a day, as I said I'm exhausted and still on a bit of a high so I'm going to take it easy, watch the Giro d'Italia on tv and knit some more socks.