craft show report

I know you're all dying to know how it went and I have good and bad news. The good news is that my booth went together with only a minor hitch or two. The vintage folding table that I had under the window in my studio—the one that supports both of my cats who love to sleep there in the sun every morning—broke as soon as I tried to open it up. So, I hauled it home and borrowed a table from my hallway. And I was against a wall—sort of. The show was held in a gym so the wall behind me was padded and striped white and blue, but I was able to hang my flower banner across the back.


Here's the 8' back table that I rented from the school, complete with polka dot table toppers and products galore.


I hung embroidered tea towels from a vintage quilt rack that I painted off white and stacked towels without embroidery below.


Mini wallets were arranged on long plastic trays that I got from Target; they matched the fabric just about perfectly.

There are lots more pictures on my Flickr page.

Now for the bad news. Attendance was way down this year and people just weren't buying. I made just three sales and two of those were to other vendors. I'm trying not to take this personally because I got lots of compliments about my things. A very nice man who made handmade jewelry heard it was my first show and stopped by to tell me to not be discouraged. He didn't have any sales either, although that may have been due to the fact that 27 of the 83 vendors were jewelry, and not all of it handmade.

So, I learned that I can make my booth look just like I'd pictured it in my head. It was a great ego boost to hear how much people liked my work. I did make back my booth fee - barely. Will I do this show again? Maybe. But, it hasn't made me give up just yet. I'm about to sign up for another show the first weekend in December so I'll have more craft show adventures to tell you about soon!

crazy busy

I've mentioned before that I'm vending at the AHEA Harvest Craft Show on Saturday, and I've been so busy getting ready. Every morning I make a new list of things to do and then check off as I go down the list. Since I haven't done this show before, there's a lot I don't know — like whether I'll be against a wall and not need risers after all. Whether I'll be able to use my flower banner or not. Luckily I can start setting up tomorrow night and can make some last minute decisions on fixtures and props. As far as product goes I'm all done except for the finishing touches on an embroidered tea towel. It's been a busy month!


a new product created for the show—fabric-covered notebooks

My camera batteries are charging as we speak, so I promise to take pictures of my booth. I know I always love to see what other crafters are doing - so many creative display ideas! Mine will be a mix of vintage (circular button rack, painted wood towel rack, baskets and bowls) and modern (lime green trays from Target!). I'll finally get to put some of the props I've been collecting for years to use!

So wish me luck and, if you're able to attend the show, stop by and say hello.

hen party

Speaking of birds, I recently listed a new embroidery pattern on my website. Called Gossip Girls, it's a design taken from a vintage stamped-for-embroidery clothespin apron, and it features two hens—one in a polka dot bonnet, the other in an apron—gossiping over a fence. Such a cute design and one I hadn't seen before. Eventually I'll get to embroidering the original apron (found on Ebay) but I traced the pattern right away!



I've also added the option of purchasing my patterns as PDFs instead of printed copies. It's always been a problem for international customers to order patterns because the shipping can be outrageously high—often more than the pattern itself. It also solves the problem of being able to use the patterns over again—you can just print out a new copy. All you need to view and print the files is Adobe Acrobat Reader and you can download it for free here if you don't already have it on your computer.

Being able to offer PDF patterns also solves a huge problem for me, one that's prevented me from selling some of the larger designs. I'm only able to print 8 1/2 x 11 sheets on my printer and some patterns are larger than that (this new chicken one, for example, is 8.5" x 12"). For my own use I can print them in sections and tape them together but I can't sell and ship them like that. The customer, having the pdf in hand, can print out a new copy whenever she needs it. And with the option of printing the designs larger or smaller, depending on your project.

So, look for more larger designs soon. In the meantime check out the other great patterns I have for sale. If you like chickens, you'll love #VP103 Poultry Diner!

pancakes + jelly = fun

Wow! I always thought this was something my mother invented herself. Whenever I've mentioned to anyone in conversation that I used to eat pancakes layered with grape jelly they've looked at me like I was crazy. Now I have proof that such a thing existed and was called a jelly stack!

I found this ad while going through a pile of 1960s women's magazines that I've had hanging around for a couple of years. I'm trying to clean up my studio a bit and thought I'd go through them and pull out the good bits for future reference.



My mom would have read these magazines (Better Homes & Gardens, McCalls, Ladies Home Journal) and many of the recipes for the casseroles we ate as kids came from their pages. I've already mentioned the dreaded spam and canned salmon concoctions, but some of the recipes were actually pretty good! Of course, I moved on from grape jelly long ago so I might substitute cherry or peach jam today. It sounds like a nice change from maple syrup.

An interview with Sharon Stark

Please welcome Sharon Stark from Sharon's Antiques: Vintage Fabrics and The Rickrack Rag who’s agreed to do an interview about feedsacks. Sharon lives in southeastern Pennsylvania and has been collecting and selling feedsacks for more than 11 years.



Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get started collecting and selling feedsacks?

The feedsack business resulted from a number of coincidences. First, my husband and I have been into antiques for years, both separately and together. When we got together, he had a used bookstore and I operated a stand selling general antiques at a local antique market.

We started selling on eBay in late 1997, as the internet began to make big changes in the marketplace. One major change was in my husband’s field, used books, and it became less practical to have a physical store instead of an online presence. So we decided he’d give up the store and sell online.

He found free webspace and started a list of books for sale there, also listing with a service that included a national selection of booksellers. Since he had created the website for his books, he looked around to see what sort of website would benefit my business, and what items would lend themselves to sale online. While selling on eBay, we found that feedsacks (we had always called them feed bags) had begun to sell for more than the dollar or two that they usually brought around here. Since they were easy to scan (we didn’t yet have a digital camera), we selected feedsacks for our beginning web site.

You live in a great area of the country for finding feedsacks with lots of farms and Amish communities. Do you find most of your feedsacks locally or do you travel to find them?

We find most of our feedsacks at farm sales and auctions in our local area, though we have bought them from friends as far away as Nebraska and even California. We also scour local antique markets and co-ops for feedsacks. When the Feedsack Club was in operation, we were members and bought lots of them at the annual conventions. And as our website grew, we were sometimes even able to buy some on eBay to resell on our site.

As far as traveling, we don’t travel a lot anyway, but when we do, of course we stop at antiques shops and look for feedsacks and other textiles, but nowhere are they as plentiful as in our local area.

gone awol

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. And I was doing so well lately, too. On top of getting ready for the craft show, one of the shop owners where I consign emailed and said she needed more stuff so I quickly diverted some of my show products to her. And cut out more tissue cozies and wallets to make up the difference.

And I'm in the last stages of refinancing our mortgage, so fielding lots of phone calls. I'm glad I'm not as unorganized as the people who work at the bank - I'd never get anything done. The paperwork isn't quite ready for closing, my lawyer still needs to review it all, so I have no idea when this is going to actually happen. Hopefully/maybe next week.

When there's not much to talk about you can't go wrong with a cute kitty picture. Here's one of mine sleeping on top of an old quilt in a laundry basket. I must have walked past about ten times before I realized she was there. The basket is full of things to be ironed, another project on my very long to-do list.



Be sure to stop in next week for my interview with Sharon Stark of Rickrack.com; we'll be chatting about feedsacks!

coffee collar

Congratulations to Cristin Powers for being chosen a winner of Country Living's Women Entrepreneurs Pitch Your Product event last May. More than 100 products were reviewed by a panel of magazine editors, and just eight were chosen. Cristin is owner of Green Being in Scranton, Pennsylvania (a shop where I sell some of my products on consignment) and she also makes her own products from recycled burlap coffee bags, including the reusable recycled coffee cup insulator shown here. You can read more about it, and the other winners, in the current issue (November 2009) of Country Living magazine. And, since you're probably not anywhere near Scranton and can't visit the shop in person you can order these and similar products right on her website.