More sewing and fabric

The sewing machine has been on the go again this week - I have made a new line and made some ipad covers, with an oilcloth outer and soft cotton lining, softly padded with wadding - these ones just need buttons adding for decoration.

I have also had a trip to the local fabric shop and got some lovely new lining fabric - watch out for these as bag lining over the next few weeks  -I am just about to go and cut out a few today.

I will be at Altrincham Vintage market this Sunday selling my bags, it would be lovely to see you there

Stockists

I have not got my first stockists - Local creation is a local art gallery/retail space which allows local crafters to display items - https://www.facebook.com/LocalCreation?ref=ts&fref=ts

I have left them a selection of my bags and cases today, it is a lovely space with some amazing products, well worth a look around.

Craft Fairs

I've been thinking a lot about craft fairs and markets recently. With a family and a husband who works weekends, any free days are very special so I need to make sure that any fairs which I attend are good value in terms of sales etc. My last 2 fairs have been less than successful in terms of sales, which really knocks your confidence as a maker - there is nothing as sould destroying as spending all day (often in the cold) manning a stall, being polite to customers and then after several hours packing up most of the same stock you unpacked with such high hopes that morning !

Every time I do I fair, I get up on the morning very excited and load the car with a mixture of excitement and aprehension, Once I find the venue, its then a hunt for my table and a quick look round to see who is close to me - Is it someone I know ? Are they selling similar to me ? Does there display look better ? Then the doors open and we all wait with great expectation - will there be lots of customers ?

The customers start to come in and pick up items on the stall (this is the point where I wish I was psychic !) Are they looking to be polite ? Do they like the item but think it is too expensive ? Often they don't make eye contact, is this deliberate because they don't want to be bothered, or are they just thinking about something else ? I always find it really hard to know if/when to speak to a customer and assess if they are the kind who just wants to look in peace or they prefer a little input (I hate a hard sell so won't do that). When I get talking to customers I love to hear feedback about my products and have adapted designs etc when I have spoken to people so this on its own is a fantastic reason to do fairs.

One of the other good things about going to fairs is that I have met some amazing crafters while doing them, and really feel that I am starting to get to know a few people who I have done a couple of fairs with. I also find that lots of people will take a business card, and I have had a couple of orders on the back of this - maybe with more to come when Christmas comes around. I also find it is great to chat to other stallholders about other events, everyone is more than happy to pass on details of which events work for them, and who to contact, which is really useful when you are just starting out.

So I am going to continue doing events and have got several booked in before Christmas along with a list of others which I need to sit down with a diary to try and work out if I can do any more. I hope to see you at one of them.

I would love to hear what you like about Craft Fairs/Markets both from attending as a customer and as a seller.

Social Media

Well I sat down to tidy up my website last night - just wanted to take off some sold out items and do some simple tidying up - ended up changing the colour and template ! It is still a work in progress as I wanted to change the buttons to make the whole thing more streamlined, but to do that I need to use html - may as well be swahelli !! After teaching myself I can make the button look nice but not link to the website - a little more work and I should have it cracked and then I can add the buttons to the blog too.

Anyway it got me thinking, how many people use all the differant forms of media - I found buttons for sites I had never heard of ! I use Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest regularly so that's nice and easy. I also have a Linkein and Google + account which I got after reading it was one of those things I 'should' have but I have never had chance to look at them properly of figure them out (would rather be sewing !)

So what accounts do you have, and more importantly use regularly. What buttons do you like to see on a website or Blog and is there such a thing as too many buttons - would love to hear your thoughts on it to give me something to think about as I continue trying to figure out html.

Fabric Labels

I have been trying to work out the best way to add a fabric label to my bags and thought I would share the things I have tried. 

I bought these many years ago for putting on knitted items which I had made, they work fine but I wanted something with a bit more impact.

 I got these ones from an ebay sellar, they work really well as they can be folded over to sew into the seam, but you have to use a stock image and I wanted something more personal.

I found loads of differant ideas on Pinterest and saved them all to this Board so you can see all the directions, so I won't go over them again.

I first tried using rubber stamps and Stazon ink on Cotton Webbing which took ages to do and it was quite hard not to get the ink from the edge of the stamp on the webbing as you can see above.

Next I tried some iron-on transfer paper and made my own design in Word - it was quite a simple design and worked ok on both webbing and gosgrain ribbon. The main thing is to remember to reverse the image before printing. 

 
I then got my new logo and wanted to use this for labels, again I printed it off the computer using transfer paper from crafty computer paper who have a fantastic range of transfer papers, again you need to remember to reverse the image before printing as above. I then cut the page into lots of individual squares and tried to iron them on !

As you can see the image is quite dense and doesn't work very well on the cotton webbing as it has too much texture so it was difficult to get an even label.

Next I tried gosgrain ribbon which was a little better but still not as even.

Finally I tried satin ribbon and found this much easier to get an effect - I have tried it on narrower and wider ribbon and both work well.

The wider ribbon can be folded over and sewn into the seam as above, this one is a little close to the seam so I just need to get the hang of spacing. I've also played with sewing the narrower ones on in differant ways, it tends to pucker a little and catch on the transfer if I use zig zag all the way round, but if I just straight stitch across each end it seems to look a little better.

I plan to try another couple of the ideas on the pinterest board - there is an interesting idea which lets you print direct onto fabric using freezer paper, I also plan to order some fabric from Spoonflower and will get some labels printed from there too - I will update you when I have tried these methods.

Zip Purses

These little Zip purses have been great sellers

There is also a tutorial here for how to make them yourself - here, but one of the best thing has been listening to peoples suggestions for uses. I originally made the purse to keep my earbud headphones in, heres some other suggestions.

Coin purse
Dummy holder
To keep on keyring with car park change
On dog lead with clean poo bags in

Would love to hear your suggestions for these handy little purses

Altrincham Vintage Market

Feel like the Blog has been a bit neglected of late, school holidays and the arrival of guinea pig hutch which needed some renovation work (Pictures to follow soon!) seem to have all had a big impact on my time.

I was at the Altrincham Vintage Market on Sunday, the weather was great and I was in the main market this time, which had a lovely feeling about it, the DJ playing the music was great ! I am hoping to book some more dates in for this market, need to check rotas etc. The market was fairly busy and I did well with sales.

I am feeling much happier about my stall now, I have got new tablecloths which I am much happier with, still need to sort out some better display boxes etc, I bought a vintage vanity case at the weekend which I will reline and use for display too. 

Would love to hear your thoughts on the display.

I am doing my first school ladies night on Friday night - not sure what to expect but looking forward to it.

Now I need to go and teach myself SEO and how to establish a database, my sewing machine is calling but needs must !