Saturday 20 November 2010

Last shopping day before Christmas

Today saw my last stall this year at our village market, which was a couple of hours longer than the usual morning event. Like most of the traders there I hoped people would be doing lots of Christmas shopping and besides the usual range of socks I'd topped up my stock of fingerless gloves and scarves with this in mind. My friend Ann joined me on the stall with the recycled accessories her daughter makes, brooches, bags etc from vintage fabrics and felted jumpers.
I always find it quite difficult to display my knitting attractively and to a certain extent it's pointless as people constantly pick up and feel the items. In fact today one little girl got quite excited sniffing the wool, which I totally appreciated. Another good day of sales, I took just under £100 with another £20 of orders to make before Christmas. I spent almost as much as I took, buying some pretty jewellery, the Swarovski crystals and pearls as a gift, the turquoise and onyx I might be a bit reluctant to give away. I also got some handmade toiletries, some lovely prints, this is crab apples and fly agaric fungi, a silk bag and some charity cards. It's really nice to support your fellow crafters, shop locally and tick a few items off the Christmas list. Now I'm exhausted, far too tired to start knitting orders. There is talk that the market won't run next year because of lack of local support which would be such a shame as it's a great community get together as well as an environmental thing to do. Besides, I've still got socks left and sod's law the scarf I worked late last night finishing didn't sell.

10 comments:

  1. Glad it went well for you. Shame these things are not supported locally, if you don't use it you lose it!
    love
    Lyn
    xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. So pleased that you sold (and spent) well! It's a long time till next Christmas, so maybe things will have picked up by then for the market to carry on. I'm got 7 people waiting for pairs of socks, and little chance of me getting them all knitted by Christmas! I must learn to say no!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds like you have had a great day! There's nothing like community spirit. We supported our local farmer's market for two years. It took place every other Sunday and was a wonderful outlet for locally grown veg and locally reared meat etc. Sadly, due to lack of support it has stopped. It was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning... sauntering down into the city centre, enjoying an 'al fresco' coffee and then some purchasing. It's absolutely as Lyn says! Rosx

    ReplyDelete
  4. You should definitely keep the turqoise and onyx! I enjoyed looking over the finished products you've worked on.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think you displayed very prettily!! The knit roses are lovely, did you make those too? Whatever the big pink thingy is, it looks like a blanket, I love the colour and the pattern. It all looks very lovely!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am always surprsed people do not support such events. I used to love Christmas shopping at craft markets in the UK as it was somewhere to find original gifts.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well done you for selling so much...
    shame people don't always appreciate quality
    x x x

    ReplyDelete
  8. Fantastic sales......it's a great feeling knowing that people love your makes enough to part with their pennies.

    I, like you, am feeling a little knitted out at the moment.
    florrie x

    ReplyDelete
  9. I like that, selling and buying at the same event. That print is lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  10. That sounds like such a lovely event! Hope they manage to keep it going.. Although, you wouldn't perchance have a pair of very large male woolly socks for sale? The partner suffers from frosty feet, the poor thing..

    ReplyDelete