Live at the Hallogreen

So this past weekend we did the Hallogreen in Daytona Beach, a Green Halloween event. It was a nice day, bright and sunny without being sweat-inducing, even if we didn't sell much. One of the hazards of doing craft shows is ending up in an odd place on the site, which we did this year, through the wonder of last-minute changes. Eh. It happens.

The event is done in the same location as the Saturday farmer's market — nom nom nom veggies. I didn't get a chance to wander around much, though. I was too busy spinning two whole bobbins of yarn. All in all, it's a fun event, even when I don't sell too much. (Le sigh.) I'll give it another year and we'll see what happens — the third time might just be the charm.

Here's the photo tour of the Hallogreen this year.


Handspun yarn on the table in the booth.


Another angle on the yarniness.


Shawl pins! On my first handwoven triloom shawl.


Handwoven thingies.


The first mate's lovely chain mail glow bracelets.


And my knit bracelets.


Drop spindles for spinning yarn...


Or you could just watch me spin on my wheel instead. ;)


The booth, with the first mate in residence.


And here's Tampa on the drive home. Nearly back!
It's always nice to get out of the house and meet new people, anyway.

Now ... to schedule the shows for November!

Evidence of pre-show madness

I always go a little nuts right before a craft show, and start cramming lots of production time into the last few days before the event. Time creeps up on me now like it never did when I was young — younger? — and I'm always like, "Man, I meant to make 3,000 more things before this show! Now I only have time to make 300!" ;)

Here are pics of some of my most recent 300. There are actually more finished things than I have photos of right now, as most of the newly-finished stuff is in various states of drying. (I've actually spun more yarn in the past two days than I have in the past two months, I think.) Maybe my quicksilver side comes back in fits and starts ... that happen to coincide with the last three days before every craft show.


Proto-yarn, waiting to be spun.


Yarn in progress, still on the bobbin. (Pardon the blurriness. I didn't want to stop long enough to set up the tripod.)


Finished rainbow yarn!


And my first embroidered soap sack. Embroidery depicts ... uh ... a free-form weird thing — but don't laugh too hard; it's not bad for a first try. ;)
There will definitely be photos of the other things I've made, but I'm not sure I'll manage to post them before the Hallogreen on Saturday. I may be totally absorbed by the pre-craft-show madness.

And the bash was a blast

It's inevitable: Every time I have a craft event coming up, I end up doing it on virtually no sleep. It's not nerves, either; it's cats. I don't know how they know there's going to be an event the next day (sure, I move boxes around before an event, but I move boxes at other times, too), but they invariably go nuts the night before a craft show or other vendy event where I'll need my wits about me. This time the upstairs neighbor's cat even got into the act by climbing up our window screen at six a.m. I guess it's like when I was in high school, and every time an audition was coming up, I'd get sick just in time for it — even when I didn't know there was one coming up, I swear. I'll just have to accept that when I am doing any event as a vendor, I will always be slightly crazier than usual and more than slightly sleep-deprived.

Other than the apparently compulsory lack of sleep, the SaSS Bash went reasonably well. Sales were slow, but socializing was not, and I met a ton of great people, listened to good music, and ate my first pear champagne cupcake and my first red velvet cupcake (courtesy of Frostings, Inc.). As I told the organizers: It was probably the most fun I've ever had making that little money. ;)

We set up in the old 1910 streetcar barn on the river while it was still sunny outside. Have to say, I loved the lighting in there in the afternoon. Wish I could have that lighting all the time for my product photography.


The first mate crafted away on his chain mail stuff while I wrapped up the last of booth setup. Oh, yeah, and took his picture.
The spinning wheel got some exercise.




Yes. This is my lap. Plus fiber.
Then the wheel got tricked out with glow sticks, and let me tell you, I've been wanting to do that for a while, but this is the first nighttime event we've done. Finally.


Is this a little disco-esque? If so, it's appropriate, considering the event was organized by the Disco Dolls.
And with that red fiber up there, I spun an entire bobbin of yarn without even trying (which is officially the first time I've done that at any event). Here's the yarn after I got it home:


I even made a sale on Etsy while I was away, which was pretty amusing (and luckily, I didn't sell something out of the shop that I also sold at the event ... though that would have served me right for forgetting, in my sleep-deprived state, to put the shop on vacation ;)).

So all in all, it was a pretty productive time. Woo to that.

On to the next!

ARTpool art/craft/vintage show + yarn + a preview

Here's what the sky looked like as we drove to the ARTpool art/craft/vintage show on Saturday morning:



The day was forecast to be rather cool for this area, but it turned out as wishy-washy as the weather in St. Pete usually is: It alternated cloudy/cool and sunny/warm. The turnout for the show was pretty good, compared to the other shows we've done this year, and we made lots of contacts and new friends, including Jennifer Wunderlich of iWunder on Etsy. Alas, your dear captain was too enchanted by the pottery booth across the way, the discontinued fabric sample books, and the other sparklies and pretties at the show to remember to take any pictures. Doh. Suffice to say it was a really fun show, and we hope to do a bunch more shows with ARTpool in the future, if they'll have us!

I did spin most of the singles that turned into this yarn while I was at the show, too:


And while we're talking about fluffies, here's a preview of the fiber that will turn into the yarn that will turn into the magical wristwarmers pattern I posted about here a couple weeks ago:



Tune in again soon for more babbling on creativity. I've got a few future posts bubbling in the back of my head (and in still-in-progress Word documents).

The holidays are coming! (plus, shopping for shoppers)

Star and Crossbones has booked two more craft shows in St. Petersburg (the captain's hometown and birthplace, doncha know): Art Attack on November 21, right before Thanksgiving, and the ARTPool art/craft/vintage show on December 19 — right before Christmas. That sounds like it should be exciting...

We may also be attending another Daytona Beach event on December 5, if we can get the logistics right (i.e., if Brian's family in the area have finished remodeling their bathrooms so we have a free place to stay).

The event we did over the weekend, at the antique flea market, was a bit silly for us, really ... which I thought it probably would be, from the way things were the last time. But it rained on and off all day during the last one, so I thought I'd give it a second try. But it looks like my feelings were right: The people who shop antique flea markets (or at least, the people who shop at that antique flea market) don't seem to be the same people who look for quality handmade items, which points up the importance of finding craft shows and events that fit your products — it's like the need to advertise to the correct audience. Meaning it doesn't matter how great your stuff is if you're marketing to the wrong people. (People who only read literary poetry aren't going to buy Harry Potter, no matter how many times they see the gimongous display at the bookstore.)

And if you don't find your market, you could make the mistake of thinking your products aren't marketable or good enough. From reading along on mailing lists as people try to find good shows, I gather it takes trial and error and word of mouth — or luck, lacking those two things — to find your audience, so for those of you out there trying to find your niche, keep trying. I certainly don't intend on giving up until I've given it a good run.

And hey, I got a nice bamboo barrette-thing out of it, from the other artist who had a table at the event:



I also got a lopsided tan, from sitting in one direction all day ... but them's the breaks when you dare to sit outside in Florida.

Halloween doings: a craft show and some piratical sewing

We spent Halloween in Daytona Beach this year, doing our first "real" show as Star and Crossbones. A few months ago we had a table at an antique shop's "flea market," because a friend of mine who works there asked us a couple of days before it to fill a spot — but we didn't have a banner or business cards or a Web site or ... yeah. We had us, some homemade displays, and whatever we happened to have in stock at the time.

The Daytona Beach Hallowgreen event was the first event at which we set up a tent, had a banner, and passed out business cards. We even had a receipt book ... OooOOoooo. Here I am sitting in our booth (and knitting):


And for good measure, here's a photo with Brian and a close-up of our table — I took this one early in the morning, as soon as there was enough light, so I couldn't forget to take a picture:



It was a fun show. The organizer has told us we'll be welcome back next year if we're interested, we met fellow Etsy FEST member Cory from Aquarian Bath, whose lead we followed in order to get into the show, we got to visit Brian's family in the area, and we gave out all but I think three of our business cards — so even though we only sold a couple of things, I think it was a pretty successful show. (I do wish I had gotten the fabric labels done in time to sew them into the scarves, though. Oh, well. Next time.)

And actually, we're doing the antique shop's "flea market" again this Sunday. We still won't have our normal business cards, since the new batch hasn't arrived yet from the printer (alas...), but I'll just have to whip some up and print them out myself, because we can't just have nothing. ;) And this time, we'll have a table. And chairs. And more of a clue about what we're doing. And the all-important receipt book. Wahaha. (Come see us at Memory Lane Antique Mall in St. Petersburg, if you're in the area.)

Oh, and the other thing I had to do for Halloween was sew a pirate shirt for a guy Brian works with. In the last entry, I was going to try cleaning my sewing machine with Citra-Solv, so that, you know, it would actually work so I could sew the shirt. I should have documented the battle, but sitting on a tile floor for four hours unscrewing tiny screws and using two billion paper towels and a pair of tweezers to remove 10 years' worth of gunk from a bunch of metal gears didn't inspire me to take photos. Suffice to say, the machine now runs. Not perfectly, mind you, but I didn't kill it, and it didn't kill me. I declare this: A WIN!

And look, I was a good girl and sewed the placket facing on the commissioned pirate shirt before I sewed the front piece of the shirt to the back piece:



Wins all around. Except for the fact that I've been suffering from post-craft-show out-of-it-ness — or maybe I'm catching a wee bit of something. But I can't let that stop me, as Star and Crossbones must sail on...