My first Spring into Wool fair

A month ago I published a list of upcoming events and here we are! The first one, Spring into Wool in Leeds come and gone. Will try to put my feelings and thoughts down on paper while I remember details:
- general (venue, organisation, people). Very positive! I like venue, light and spacious (even if I was in a bit of awkward place, but it was my choice), organisers did a brilliant job and fellow exhibitors were very friendly.
- footfall. Saturday was very busy, but not overcrowded still, which was good, I do not like when people need to push through. Sunday was much quieter. I know this happens often (if not always) and still...
- sales. This is a tricky one  😊 In general I've sold OK considering the time of year and my table position. There are two "buts" still. - the sales to the visitors were mainly of the lower price end. The two most expensive sales were to the other exhibitors. Obviously, people came for supplies and were very focused on it. I've received so many great comments on my stuff but sales were mainly of small and inexpensive items. And the second "but" - I've sold mostly on Saturday. If not one large sale to an exhibitor and good last minute sale to a visitor it would have been just lost day entirely.
Summary: - will I do it the next year? Yes, I suppose. I do like an atmosphere, I have had lovely chats with the other exhibitors, I didn't feel tired at the end, I've bought lovely silks and very fine wool tops. And it's so close to home, just 40 mins of easy drive. Yes, I'd like to do it again!

Now there are some pictures. These are of my stall on the first and the second day, when I restocked and rearranged things.

 And a few pictures of other stalls with people readying for opening.

I suppose everyone in UK is stuck home with a snow blocked roads... I have two appointments cancelled today. But having felting at hand is very helpful!
Will show two different tea cosies, both with poppy design but colours are varied and it makes all the difference:

 

Back to work?

Was struck with a flu and out of action for two weeks! So unfortunate! Being so busy, had to cancel a demonstration session with our York felters group.
For a start want to show a new coffee pot cosy in subdued colours with delicate lavender flowers. Playing with a new style of pictures as well...

For your eyes only!

Last week I posted a new tea cosy with poppy design on Facebook and sold it the same day:

But I need some for a Skipton fair so that I had to make two more with similar design but was not going to show them in social media until the event is over, I need a good display there. Here are they:

 

Hope somebody will like them... 

I'm SO crossed with ETSY!

I am really crossed with some new ETSY policies!
I usually have posted some my things on Pinterest, some of them with the links to my ETSY shop. They were pinned and re-pinned so that if somebody follows the link back to the ETSY shop the item was most probably sold. In this case ETSY's message was something like that: Sorry, the item is not available, see what else the shop has to offer     and showed some items from the shop. Great! It was this way until recently.
But now! If the situation is as above ETSY show the customer the array of similar items from the different shops and nothing from my shop! It means I work hard, make a unique piece, which attracts attention, bring the customer to ETSY  - and all that for a benefit of the other sellers. It's unfair to say the least. But even if to put my feeling aside it's not very fair towards the customer! An example: a customer is coming from Pinterest to my ETSY shop  to see my felted gadget case with floral design, say, poppy. Three features: my shop (i.e. my style), felted, poppy design. If the original piece is sold ETSY show the variety of cases which are NOT from my shop, NOT felted and NONE of them featured poppy! The only thing in common is CASE.
I makes no sense, I hate it! 

Masham 2017

My second Wool event at Masham sheep fair. One of my favorites! Nice venue, busy town, friendly people. good attendance. It was nice to meet some friends from the last year too! I did well last year and it was good this year as well. I like that I've sold a little bit of everything. I make a few pictures at the beginning of the second day, before we opened.

Just pictures...The rest of the order:

Quite happy with the most of them. The only one which turned out mediocre is this one. Poor thing was left behind and the rest were posted to the shop.  

 

Time management in Felting

It's a bit of joke, of course :) !
As the most of crafts the felting is a very time consuming hobby and there is a very little you could do to make it easier. And still! If you felt purely for hobby reason you can skip this post straight away. If you, like myself, not only make but sell sometimes and know about pre-fair frenzy and shortage of time - you may find it useful.
At first I pinpoint the part of felting process which is the most tiresome or annoying. It could be very individual, some felters do not enjoy rolling, but rolling is fine with me because I usually listen to some book or workshop on youtube while rolling. My weakest points are preparing everything at the beginning (and putting everything back!) and laying the wool.
For large fairs I need to make a lot of small items, very often in the same design but slightly individual still. I prefer to layout a few in one go because it saves me time on preparation and on choosing and getting out the boxes with the colours needed and so on. I can lay out a few items in the same design, say, with poppies - glasses cases, Kindle covers, tea cosies and so on. They are all different in pictures and scales but I use the same colours and similar compositions. I prefer to do the layouts one day and the felting the next day or even after whenever I have a few spare hours. One very intense and messy day of layout and felting and finishing later.
The same with scarves, especially if they are of medium size - I can lay out two one day and then roll them together in one roll the next day. It will not save me a huge amount of time, but it will reduce the mess and give me more flexibility with my time.
Of course it doesn't work for a large one off pieces when I need to focus on it entirely.
As an example - I was working on pictures (they are relatively small) and laid out some small items in the similar design:

   

Wholesale order and update

In March I got a wholesale order for a few tea cosies and discussed this new kind of selling on  Forum Here. Everything went smoothly and today I have another offer from the same shop to make ten small size (8"x8") pictures which she is going to frame or use as a cushion panel. Again she is ready to pay upfront.
I'm not very keen on large orders, getting tired and bored quickly, but still it's nice to be asked.
I will post some pictures when I make them :)

Feeling grumpy today (and often!) about Facebook! At first it's always large bold font for short posts! OK, I managed to cheat to avoid this nuisance. Then they offer you to make a background of the post in colours! Now my page is screaming with posts in large bold letters on the acid green/yellow colour! And they are mostly about the very trivial stuff. I do not mind people complaining about the weather but not that loud please! I know that I could unfollow some friends to stop seeing their posts and I did it twice (when some become overly political) but always with a heavy heart.
Back to more cheerful things!
I've tried using the technique of making textured felt in scarves. See two of my first tries. They are very similar in colours and materials, more samples than finished pieces but I hope to make them proper pieces.

 
  

Catch up for Summer

Short catch up for June - July- early August  😊
Have been VERY busy!

New techniques.
After taking a course on a textured felt I started to use these new techniques in my fish and cushions. I think it works well for these items:

     

New Fairs.
I have tried a new event this summer, York River Art Market and it happened to be quite good for me (and for the most of exhibitors I presume).
I did two days, the weather on the day of the first one was very poor and still it was OK in sales. The second one, on the first Saturday of August was very good - a glorious weather, great location - a river work in the very centre of York. All in all it was very pleasant day and sales were high, at the same level as Xmas time. And it was so close to home ! Very pleased with the event, will do it again next year.
Could you see the difference?

 

 

 

As for a Art in the Pen this year it was not as good as last year for me. May be I need to reconsider "my strategy" 😊
Anyway I have finished with fairs for a while. The next one is Masham sheep festival the last weekend of September.
At the moment I'm nearly off to Finland for a holiday and try to put everything felty aside. Back to felting in September.

Feltrosa 2017

I'm just back from felting festival Feltrosa in Italy. It's an annual event held in different locations (usually remote :) ) . This year the organisers' choice was a small town Nazzano rather close to Rome but still in a national park. The house on the first picture is where we stayed and the magnificent castle on the hilltop is Nazzano itself (the second pic.). It was rather steep to get there even if the road is good!

But scenery is breathtaking!

There was a small themed exhibition "River and Life". I can't miss such occasion and presented one of my fish :)

  There were a few entertainments, getting together, felting in a group etc but what I was waiting most was a workshop. This year they run seven workshops: nunofelted snood, wall hanging in some kind of mosaic technique, making a hat, weaving, small needle felted rings, eco printing and making wool bas relief (this one was my choice). More info on workshops is HERE . I was making a bas relief with a tutor Maria Jose Troncoso  Just a few of her designs:             

 

I like the simple elegance of monochrome very much and she is a lovely person! She is a Spanish speaking person, the rest of the class were Italians but even with this variety of languages we did very well. It was interesting workshop and fortunately not very demanding physically. These are the works of my fellow students:

 

And this is my little chap!

I have really enjoyable time there, meeting some friends from last year and making new ones. The weather was great and afterwards we spent three days in Rome! I came back overwhelmed with emotions and need some rest :)