Finished my First Market Day!!!

It's amazing how fast this month flew by.  I mean it really went right over my head and now here is October.  This month my goal was to make it through my first ever Market Day and here were some of my worries:

Was I going to have enough stuff?
How do I price things?
Would I sell anything?

I was so stressed it was ridiculous!!! I was putting so much pressure on myself, I really wanted to make money.  That's not why I sew but I felt like if I made money I could justify this very expensive and time consuming hobby.  You know what they say about turning a hobby into a job, you end up not enjoying it anymore. I finally gave up half way through the month and said there was no point in worrying and what happens was going to happen.  With that in mind instead of sewing I spent the week before reading The Fault in Our Stars, a very good simple read to make you appreciate life and love.  Not productive for Market Day but very much in calming my nerves.

The day of it rained all morning.  I mean really rained but we set up as late as possible to try to keep things dry.  Luckily about an hour in the rain stopped and the sun came out and honestly it got really beautiful and this gave us a chance to just sit outside and enjoy it. 

A panoramic shot, thanks to the iphone upgrade the night before, of the whole booth.

I painted some bunting a white tablecloth from Target. 

My sign that blew over at least 15 times the whole day.  I easel I had gotten the day before at a yard sale for 75 cents. 

I made some bags and pouches to sell.  You might recognize most of these quilts from previous post.  This owl quilt is my newest one I made specifically for this day.  I made some matching pillows.  I also put a lot of things I made from the Patchwork Please! Zakka 2.0 SAL for sale.  The book quilt from that was the only quilt  I sold and it was a very exciting moment.  Most of my decoration came from Target's clearance section and believe me some buyers were more interested in those than my things lol.  The idea of bunting on the tablecloth and my sign came from Pinterest. 
The end result was I didn't sell very many items but I sold enough to feel like it was a successful day plus it paid for all the food and lemonade we bought while we were there.  I priced my items at wholesale price = (10/hr + cost of material) x 2 which I felt was very comparable to others pricing and I definitely had enough stuff to sell.  I plan to sell everything else through my Etsy store. 

I was very happy with the way my booth looked and thanks to my hubby my quilts were displayed beautifully.  It gave me a chance to see all the pretty things I made in a pretty way.  Our tent was blue and that wasn't my first choice (I was imagining white) but it was on sale and you can't argue with great pricing so I tried to make the rest of my decorations match and went with a blue/purple theme and in the end I wouldn't change a thing.  I'm very proud of the way everything looked and it was a booth I would've shopped in and been like oohhing and aahhhing at everything.  I'm also very proud of my products, especially my quilts.  Again I know I'm bias but you don't often get the chance to just sit there and enjoy the fruits of your labor and I got that wonderful opportunity thanks to the support of my hubby and my family. 

We all had a really good time. 

Linking up for a ALOYF and Crazy Mom Quilts.

This Little Piggy is Going to Market

I'm going to be attending my first Market day at the end of this month so I really have to concentrate on making stuff for that. I want to make bags, kitchen items, and crossing my fingers to finish at least two more quilts.  I also have to create a booth and that itself is going to be a huge project.  So my goal for September is to be able to make it through Market Day and share all the wonderful first of being a booth vendor. Hope you guys  have a great September and see you on the other side. 

Linking my goal up at Sew BitterSweet Designs.

Down to one post a week...

So it looks like I'm a one post a week kind of gal these days.  I don't like it but it is what it is.  I still share stuff on my flickr page but when it comes to writing a full post I find myself a bit overwhelmed throughout the week.  I've started working full time again due to shortage of employee at work and its kicking my butt. 

It's that time again where I get to look back and see what I got done this month.

 

These are the blocks I got done for the City Sampler QAL. Blocks 28-35.

1. Mail Organizer from Patchwork Please! 2. Star Blocks 3. Quilted Squared Quilt

4. Back of Squared Quilt 5. Medallion QAL top 6. Hexi Trivet from Patchwork Please!

7. August We Bee New block 8. Star Surround QAL top 9. Market Bag from Patchwork Please!

I finished two tops this month and one quilt.  I feel pretty awesome.


August flew by so fast and I have a feeling September will do the same.  I have my first Market Day September 21st so my goal for this month is to survive that.  I plan to use this month to make stuff I can sell so I won't be blogging until that is over with.  I will continue to do the Patchwork Please SAL because I can sell all those cute things but all the other-a-long will have to wait until October. Hopefully I won't bet too far behind. 

Hope everyone else had a great month of sewing and many more to come.  I'm linking up my finishes at Bittersweet Designs for a A Lovely Year of Finishes  . I guess I'll do one more post for my September goals but that's it, it's so hard not to share with you guys. 

Thanks for checking out some of my stuff.