Saturday Sales

A breezy and delightfully cool morning brought out the shoppers at the weekly Market at the Square, site of my first attempt to sell zippered pouches and small purses. I manned my booth at the edge of the food and craft vendor rows facing the fire station all morning and learned two things: 1. Fire fighters will use the fire station pole to come down from upstairs even when there is no emergency, and 2. The manual dexterity of Saturday morning shoppers in Urbana is a-okay. People unzipped and zipped pouches, touched and squished pouches and bought them, too. Folks made suggestions for adding pockets, key fobs and fabric that had cherries on it. Shoppers pointed me to their favorite fabric and special bead shopping sites online.

Thanks to the friends and family who came by to see my personal lemonade stand. The photo features my mother-in-law making a purchase. She didn't even ask for a discount.

To Market, To Market

I've been gearing up to explore whether I'd enjoy selling my crafts from time to time. I have reserved a booth space at the Urbana Market at the Square for this Saturday. I figured a display easel of some sort would lift my rather small pouches and purses up enough to catch the eye. M got to work putting together such a display rack, largely using items laying around our garage. I guess in an unintended way, we've shown we really do need all the random pvc pipe, scraps of wood and whatnot that has collected in our house. At the moment my youngest assistant is enjoying reorganizing items on the shelves. She is a very thorough field-tester.

Oxidized Earrings

Branching out, I acquired oxidized copper earwires and headpins to make more vintage-looking earrings. The first pair is finished with vintage white bicone beads. I think they turned out well and will be wearable more often than something brighter or larger.

It's Like I'm 2 Years Old

These hollow glass striped beads are so yummy looking, I'm tempted to pop one in my mouth. I know I shouldn't. I should instead stick to my original plan for them--to make them into periodic links in an over-sized silver chain necklace. The overall impression I'd like to achieve is something wispy, vaguely reminiscent of a necklace I couldn't have made myself (2 years old, or not).

Signed Up

I have completed an application for a booth at the local farmer's market. Clearly, I make more things than I have use for by myself or could reasonably give as gifts. Maybe, I think to myself, I could try selling something that I enjoy making anyway.

I requested a space at the market on a Saturday morning at the end of July. If it goes well, I have recouped my materials expense and dispersed small projects over my town. If it goes poorly, I have at least been entertained by the exercise of accumulating stock, devising a display and obtaining a tax i.d. number.

I'm selling zippered pouches, fabric box wallets and clutch purses. Interested?

So I Made a Bunch

I've been playing around making smaller purses and pouches of late. My sister suggested lengthening a pattern for a mini-clutch project so the purse would be large enough to carry out to dinner or to a play or some other exotic evening. That led to experimenting to find the right combination of stabilizers so I could use cotton or drapery-weight fabrics for the outside of the purse. Then I wondered how long it would take to make if I cut and sewed as efficiently as possible. The result is a large number of purses.

Single Bead

I would like to learn how to wire-wrap beads so I can very securely link beads together on a necklace or bracelet. However, when I tried the technique for this project, it didn't work. I had to start again with a second green star bead. Thus, this necklace is not that strong. If it breaks, I'll only be out one bead.

Blue Hoops

These hoop beads were calling to me so I bought some in blue, red and green. The classic color for this shape is probably white, but I think navy makes usable earrings. I think this bead would look good as a pull on a zippered pouch or inside a purse. Maybe I could string a bead on the inside of the hoop and turn it into a pendant. K wears these beads as rings, and she fancies herself quite the jewelry designer right now.

Purse Invention

My latest purse is my own design, an envelope-style shoulder bag with an adjustable short strap and a lined pleat on the front to show off a little color. Inside is a zippered pocket lined in black and white fabric. Next time I'll round off the corners more and make the top band taller. I think a little yellow or bright green fabric peeking out of a pleat on another remnant denim purse would be really cute.

Recyled Orange

More fabric left from an old project of my sister's made pouches I may or may not give back to her. On the one hand, you don't give something away if you want to keep it, and so my sister may not want the pouches. On the other hand, she wouldn't have purchased the fabric for a project in the first place if she didn't like it, and so she should think pouches made in the same pattern are just lovely. I'm thinking it over.

Coleus

I planted coleus seeds from a so-called variety pack. The picture on the outside promised the full range of pinks, reds and greens on the leaves of my plants. In practice, it's a lot more greens than pinks or reds. The seeds were so small I ended up sprinkling many in each pot. I didn't have the heart to thin the sprouts, so now I have full and lovely plants. They look more like August than June. I am enjoying them.

Candy Necklace

Bright colors, stripey beads and lots of red. These are the guaranteed draws for me in beads, fabric and things in general. This necklace can be worn as one strand, or doubled-up. A very cool vintage Italian white lucite clasp holds the whole necklace together. I'm tempted to buy more of the stripey beads and make something that is all warm colors, or all blues, or the like.