vending

Yes, once again, I broke my promise to Jessica to answer her burning questions about sheep coats. I am not sure she will forgive me this time. But she does know the reason for my recent lack of posts in general.

I participated in a fiber festival as a vendor for the first time this past weekend.

Mind you, it was very minimal participation. It was a little corner of my generous friend Val's much larger booth, with one little display stand of hand-made stitch markers. Even though it was tiny, it was an amazing of work getting the miscellaneous stuff done, like signage and mounting hangers. Luckily I have a secret set-up weapon, my wonderful BFF, who is the kind of friend who comes without a second thought when asked to work on such a hare-brained project, and brings her own coffee because she knows me well enough by now to think that a full pot of home-brewed just might be beyond me with a deadline looming. (For the record, I did have coffee waiting for her.)

I had worked all summer on this project, because I have been looking for a long time for beaded stitch markers and never found anything that worked for me, style and price-wise. After much trial, and error, and constructive criticism from fellow knitters, I finally came up with something I thought worked and might be of interest to other people. To answer the inevitable question: I called the markers "Fraternals" because no two markers in a set are exactly alike, as you can see from this most helpful picture taken by my dad. Of course, I forgot my camera for the entire weekend.

It was kind of nerve-wracking, putting myself and my little markers out there for comment and criticism. The comments were very positive though, and I sold a decent amount considering that Rhinebeck is only two weeks away, and the economy is in the dumper, and the change in dates for this festival resulted in decreased attendance.

My secret sales weapon was Secondo. I offered him a commission of $1 per set of stitch markers he sold, and he was responsible for most of the sales. He had a system all worked out, which he explained to Val: "When people come over, I stand up and smile, and they think I'm cute and buy things from me."

My mom and I are mulling over grander plans for next year. They already include employment contracts for my BFF and Secondo.