The Real Test - or was it!?

Here is my second foray into the world of craft fairs.  This time a much bigger event.  I thought it would be more of a true test of my crafts, but fewer potential customers than expected meant low sales in general (in my case, none at all, unless you count the £2 purse bought by my mum, out of pity!) Mum also bought another purse from me at home the day before  to donate to a raffle.  So, taking all this into account and the table fee, I made a grand total of minus £4.50!!!  There were lots of raffle prizes at the fair so, having bought a ticket, I hoped to take one home as a sort of consolation prize.  But it was not to be.  I did take home a prize but it was not mine.  You might have guessed - it was won by my mum!

On the bright side, I had lots of nice comments about my items and I wasn't the only one not selling.

Having no Christmas themed items on my stall, I took the opportunity, when making a tree decoration for my quilting group next week, to remedy this.  I made this little quilted stocking then, while on a roll, went on to make a few more for the stall.  All I have to do now is find another craft fair and book myself a table.

My latest creative urge came in the form of a paper project.  More on that next time. 

Progress since last time:

More brooches.
Nests of map boxes.
Christmas Tree Stockings.

Bye for now
Teresa x

Are you getting bored yet....!?

Getting bored with posts about stitching I mean.   I think DD probably is because she told me that, although she enjoys my posts, she's not so keen on the crafty stuff.  If there's anything I've mentioned before that you'd like to hear more about  I'll try to oblige.  Until then, here are my latest crafty offerings: -

 Four tote bags made with a variety of strong furnishing weight fabics.  They are all lined and have a simple pocket for small essentials.

 This was the first, experimental version.  The flowered fabric is from my mother and looked like it was from a chair cover.  The blue-check is a strange fabric that felt like it had a rubber coating but I can't remember where I got it from.  It certainly made the handles strong (I broke a needle in the process!)

 The next three bags I made as a batch so they took no longer altogether than the first one.

 

 This one is my favourite of the bunch. The blue is from some old denim jeans.

 I had a revelation when topstitching the top edge of the bags (this orange polka-dot is the lining of the cream bag).  I'm sure this will come as no surprise to most stitchers but I realised that I could get a straighter stitch-line if I moved the needle position rather than the fabric, under the foot.  Here, I've lined up the seam with the line on the foot and moved the needle to the right, where I want the stitch-line to go.  It made it much easier to follow a straight line.

This scarf is similar to the one bought from my craft stall and which two people were interested in.  I've made this for the other person as a Christmas present. Spot the un-deliberate mistake that I won't be redoing!

Progress since last time:

1 brooch finished and another started.
1 recycled child's jeans bag finished.
Crocheted/knitted bag started.

Bye for now
Teresa x

Pink and Scary!

 I want to start today by thanking all of you who commented on my last post and especially those who gave me hints and tips for my stall.  They were really useful tips that hadn't occurred to me.

In the meantime, I've finished the couple of items that didn't get done in time to put on the stall.  The pink baby quilt is quilted and bound.

 It's made with all recycled materials with the backing (below) coming from a pair of curtains I got from a car boot sale.

 The knitted lampshade came out better than I thought.  It's knitted in 6 pieces with hearts on 3 panels and garter stitch around the edges.  I suppose it would be possible to knit it all in one piece but that's beyond me I'm afraid.

(This pic looks a bit distorted, may be something to do with the trouble I had loading them this week.)

Last Friday we popped out to the the local village pub to grab a bite to eat after attending a funeral and ended up being unwitting guests at a 60th birthday party, meaning we didn't have to buy dinner after all. 'RE-SULT!' As one of our friends would say. On Saturday night, the same pub had a Halloween party.  I knew our  friends were going but no-one had seriously mentioned dressing up.

I really should have known better!!  And  considering how disgusting they ALL look, surprisingly the one most often mentioned as being scary was the clown?!

Progress since last time:

Baby quilt finished
Lampshade finished
Experimental tote bag finished with 3 more almost done.
Christmas present scarf half knitted
3 charity shop wool jumpers felted
1 charity shop cardigan un-run
1 scarf un-run

Bye for now
Teresa x