Buying at a Market or Craft sale

 As I get ready to sell some of my creations at a local craft show, I thought about this post I published last year.  I thought I’d post it again for those of you getting ready to shop at local craft or holiday sales.

If the craft sale is big and you will be doing a lot of walking, forget fashion.  Dress comfortably.  And if the sale is in the summer, dress cool.  Remember to wear shoes meant for walking.

If you are going to be there a while especially in the summer, bring something to drink.  Make sure it has a cover on it, so it doesn’t spill on anyone.  And ask before you put a drink on a vendor table.  The last thing you want to do is have your sticky sweet drink spill all over a vendor’s product, especially product that cannot easily be cleaned like fiber or fabric. Remember this product is the livelihood of the artist.

Know that not all vendors will have credit card capacity, so if you are planning on buying something expensive or a lot of items, bring enough cash and maybe your checkbook (many vendors will accept checks if they cannot do credit or debit cards.). And remember to bring small bills.  Most vendors will have enough cash on hand to make change but if you hand them a $100 bill and you are purchasing something for $5 or $10 that could wipe out their available cash.

If you have children with you, watch out for little fingers.  Lots of things craft vendors sell are bright, shiny and colorful; so tempting for little eyes to see and little fingers to grab.  And this is too where you want to watch for sticky fingers.  One little boy at my craft booth thought the fleece fish toys (for cats) were nice.  So nice, he took every one of them out of the basket they were displayed in.  When his mother asked what he was doing, his answer: “Going fishing”.  His response was cute, even to me the vendor,  but not if he had chocolate ice cream all over his fishing fingers.

The same idea goes if you bring your dog to the market, watch them as well.  Small shiny colorful items can look like food to them.  One gulp and you are on your way to the emergency vet. And don’t blame the vendor; it is not their fault they are selling something attractive to your pet.  Also remember that not everyone loves your pet as much as you do.  You will find people, including vendors, who will avoid your dog’s friendliness.  Maybe they have had a bad encounter with a dog so they are afraid or maybe, and most importantly, they are allergic.  I like dogs and cats but get me near one and I start sneezing and wheezing.

Remember if buying at a craft market that you are not just buying the material in the craft or art work but the labor as well.  Yes, artists and craftspeople enjoy, even love, what they do but they are also trying to pay the bills.  You might be able to buy a similar item in a store but it will be machine manufactured not hand crafted.  I will admit I am biased when I say; hand crafted is much more valuable.

If you know how to do a particular craft, know that not all people do things the same way. Don’t consider a knitted shawl, for example, is inferior just because an artist uses a different stitch or yarn than what you would use. So in other words, don’t criticize the artist’s work.

Selling at a market isn’t easy for the vendor but it makes it worth it when you, the buyer, want something hand crafted and one of a kind. So if you get a chance, go shop at a market. And thank them for the work they do.

 

©2017 , 2018 Cheryl Fillion

 

What Would You Do If You Could Not Fail

There is a quote attributed to Dr. Robert Schuller (the late pastor and motivational speaker) that I have always loved: “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”  What would you do?  Well recently I decided to stretch a little and I took an art quilt class. 

I would not consider myself an abstract quilt or art type person.  I like quilts to look like a picture or a quilt block.  I have trouble with mixed media projects.  I do collages but there still seems to be a theme to my collages. With a lot of abstract art, I don’t see an image or a theme.

So when a quilt artist came to our quilt guild and taught a class, I decided to try it. What I really liked about her quilts is the use of embroidery in them.  Embroidery is what started my needle work history with a crewel embroidery kit of a squirrel at the age of 9 and embroidery seems to be where I am returning now some years later. 

I bought her book ahead of the class and was reading it for the third time by the time of the class took place.  Well the book and the class showed me there was no way to fail.  She gives you guidelines, not rules, not shoulds or shouldn’ts, not a step by step process.  And what she would ask us as she went around the room was: What is your thought here and Do YOU like it?  She would make suggestions and it was OK if you didn’t accept them.  It was your art quilt. 

She also started out small.  We worked on 6 inch art quilts not a big wall hanging.  So if you didn’t like what you were doing, you could easily start over. Or if you didn’t like the whole process, you didn’t feel like you were wasting a lot of fabric or money or time (always a concern for me).  And it was easier to envision the guidelines she gave on a smaller scale.

Sometimes you have to take a chance and try something new.  It is easier in a class and I think after this, easier if you start out small.  I wrote in my first blog to begin small.  You want to paint, paint one color.  You don’t have to start with a mural.  When I taught quilting, I started with a table matt.  I had a design that gave all the parts of a big quilt (a block, lattice strips, border, quilting and binding) but it was only 18 inches square. This way if you decided you didn’t like quilting, you weren’t committed to a king size quilt.

And while my opening quote asks “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”, it is OK  to try something and not like it afterward.  I tried embroidery on paper recently.  I love embroidery but to do it on card stock, you have to poke a lot of holes to prepare the cardstock for the embroidery.  That I decided was not for me.   But I don’t think of it as a failure, I tried something new and learned a little about me (I don’t like poking holes in card stock).  You have to try something to know if you like it and that in itself is a success.  You can’t succeed or learn something new if you don’t try.

So ask yourself this “What would YOU attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” 

©2018 Cheryl E. Fillion

Spool Knitted Pumpkin

I posted this a couple of years ago.  Since I love spool knitting and pumpkins so much, I thought I would share it with you again.  This would be a great holiday gift to give or get your kids to give.

I like decorating for all holidays (I go crazy over board at Christmas) but for some reason I really like putting out pumpkins and Jack O’Lanterns for Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Since I have been talking about spool knitting in this blog, I decided I needed a new pumpkin decoration.  This also give me a chance to show how to change colors while spool knitting.

So I pulled out my bigger spool knitter and started knitting with green yarn for the stem of the pumpkin. Now I could finish off the knitting (as described in the blog post ‘Spool Knitting Tutorial’) and then later sewn it to the orange cording for the pumpkin body. 

Start stem

But I wanted a continuous cord for this ornament.

 This means I have to change color while knitting.  It is easy to do.   When you have the amount of color cording you want ( I knitted about 1 ½ inches), cut the yarn coming from your skein about 3 inches.   Make sure the yarn doesn’t come off the pegs. 

Green in knitter

Lay your next color next to the yarn you just cut and tie the two colored yarn together with a simple over hand knot .  Now continue knitting as before. 



adding orange yard

knot two colors together

When the knot gets to the knitting, I usually take my knitting tool and push the knot into the center of the cord so it is hidden.

close up of knot

When I think I have enough coil, I usually make whatever shape I am planning just to make sure I have knitted enough but I don’t sew it yet.  If I need to do a little more, I do.  I finish off the coil and remove it from the knitter.

Measure Size

To make my pumpkin, I start making a round shape starting with the end of the orange part of the coil. I fold the edge over maybe ¾” and start stitching at the fold.  I do use a pin to hold the fold together and once I have it stitched, I remove the pin.

Start pumpkin

You can sew the coil together with the yarn you used or regular sewing thread that matches the color of the yarn.  For me the thread is easier to control and if it matches the color, it will blend in with the yarn. (For these pictures I am going to use a darker thread so you can see how I stitch it.) 

I don’t sew right along the edge but try to hide my stitches in the area between coils.  As I stitch I just keep rolling the coil in shape until I get a nice round shape.

Close up of start

Make sure your needle goes through both sides of the area being sewn.  In other words catch with the needle the coil already sewn in the shape you are making and then in the coil being added to the shape.

close up of stitch

Another close up of stitch

Continue sewing until you come to the end of the orange part of the knitted cord.  The green part I started with will be the stem of the pumpkin so that won’t be sewn down as with the orange.  This needs to stick up.  If for some reason the stem doesn’t stay up, you can sew a couple of tack stitches right at the base of the stem to stabilize it (right where the pin is.) But remember not all pumpkin stems are straight. J 

Finished Pumpkin

So here is our finished pumpkin.  It is about 5” wide by 5”  high (6 ½” if you include the stem. It can be used as a coaster or just a table decoration or string some yarn though the stem and hang it from a Halloween tree (if you do that) or on the wall.

©2016. 2018 Cheryl Fillion

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Honor a cancer survivor and make a donation to your favorite cancer charity.

Here are some ribbon items in my shop.  Proceeds from the sale of these items goes to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.  This is an event I participate in every year with friends and students.

Do something this month to support a breast cancer survivor (survivors are also those women who are going through treatment.)  Donate in their name.  Take them out to lunch.  Treat them to a spa day or a manicure.  Ask them what they might need.

Cancer is a horrible disease.  Support your local cancer charity to help find a cure.

 Yoyo Pink Ribbon

Pink Needlefelted Ribbon Ornament

Pink Needle felted Ribbon Magnet

I am showing the pink ones here but I also have needle felted awareness ribbons in various colors.

© 2017. 2018 – Cheryl Fillion