Craft Fair Fun

Our kids' school had a craft fair this last Saturday, put on by the PTO to raise money for the school. My neighbor is the PTO president and since she knows that I do quilty and crafty stuff, she asked me if I'd do a table. Of course I would! So I have been making things for the past few weeks for the craft fair. I posted a bit about it here and here. I didn't end up doing anything with the cute little houses - they are still on my design wall waiting for inspiration to strike!

I did make this wallhanging though... ...and I am terrible because I fell in love with it and just couldn't sell it! It came home with me and lives on our living room wall:) How do you people who make and sell your wonderful creations bear to part with them?!

I ended up making colored pencil rolls, coin purses, bracelet cuffs, and taking orders for the monogram framed letters I make. We didn't have many people come to the craft fair, and the school is quite disappointed. Usually there are a lot of people and the school makes a good amount of money, but I think they barely covered costs. The lady vending next to me does a lot of craft fairs and told me that it's been very slow at every fair. I guess the state of the economy has even trickled down to the humble craft fair! Having said all that, I still made out OK, and sold enough to cover my booth fees and costs of what I sold plus extra, so I was happy. Happier still was my girl Sofia. I found about 15 headbands that I had made last year, and told her that if she sold them she could keep the money. So she sat with me at our little table and desperately hoped that someone would buy them. She was left with about 5, so she was a very happy camper:)

I absolutely fell in love with my little coin purses. My heart broke a little every time I sold one, as I just wanted to keep them all! Especially when I put my cellphone in one and discovered that it's a perfect fit. Luckily I have some left over. So tell me, is it wrong to have two in my bag? One for my cellphone and one for my change?!! I'm sure I could find something to put in a third...and a fourth... And I should say, I was greatly inspired by Kathy Mack at Pink Chalk Studio and her cute little purses. Adorable! And notice the little tags on my purses? Great tutorial at SewTakeAHike.

Did you notice my banner hanging behind us? I decided last minute that I just had to make one, so at 3am the night before the fair, I whipped it up, and I am in love with it! I chose all my favorite fabrics for the triangles and just fused simple black letters. No fancy applique going on here, but hey, it WAS 3am! A few months ago I thought of the name 'Quilt Relish' and it's stuck with me since then. I even registered an Etsy store with the name - I don't have anything in there yet, but I'm working on it;) I just liked the idea of using the word 'Relish', as there are so many meanings to it. As quilters we 'relish' what we do, and like relish in a jar, quilting is made up of all sorts of bits and pieces...a bit of this, a bit of that, and we add whatever we have around to our quilts! Hence the name.

We have had a lot of fun family things go on this last week including birthdays and a baptism. I think I am going to start up a new blog, one where I will post about family happenings. I really want to keep this one more about quilting, but I don't want to stop posting about home life. This way I can keep both going. I'll keep you posted for sure!