I am back from the Bazaar Bizarre Fair up in San Francisco this past weekend, and it was the bomb!! So many people, so many lovely vendors! It was wonderful...except for the rain. It rained nonstop on Saturday, making the drive up to the city and back quite scary. In fact, on Sunday morning my booth mate was worried for our safety and left me a message that she was taking a local road (El Camino) instead of the highway (101) because there were so many accidents. However, after we arrived at the fairgrounds on Sunday morning, the sun came out and shone the rest of the day! SMH! I loved the rain on Saturday because I felt it made people more willing to look at handknitted scarves and cowls. One customer actually came in and bought a hat because it was cold outside (and also because the was wearing this beautiful cobalt blue blouse and the hat matched it perfectly! LOL! )
I shared a booth with the awesome Amy of Jumbo Jibbles, the designer and creator of "whimsical plush and personalized jewelry". (I bought a giant blueberry from her for my son...that's my word and I'm sticking to it! :P).
This is what our booth looked like on Saturday morning - my half...(notice the yarn shop that had the booth right next to ours! So wrong! I was sooooo good though. I bought no yarn...but I did get some stitch markers. :) )
...and here is Amy's half of the booth:
The first couple of hours on both days was slow, but traffic picked up steadily and we made some sales. I also got quite a few custom orders. All in all, this was a great fair and I'm glad I got the experience. It's killer on your feet though, with all the standing around and walking. On Sunday my friend Alisa graciously agreed to come along and help us, so we could take a few breaks here and there. Thank you so much Alisa! I also have to thank the SF Etsy team, who had a booth at the fair manned by volunteers. These volunteers came around periodically and also watched our booths so we could take bathroom breaks or find something to eat. That was just super helpful.
As you can probably guess, I'm still exhausted from the fair but...A luta continua (as one of my middle school teachers used to say). I'm starting to work on the custom orders as well as on stocking my Etsy shop for the holiday season. Do take a look as I have a few new items on there. One of them (which was a big hit at the fair), is this chunky necklace scarf.
Let it hang long and it works as a statement neck piece. Double it up and your neck is kept warm from any sudden cold chills. Hand knit in a 50% wool - 50% acrylic chunky yarn, this scarf-necklace twists up prettily so you can hide it in your handbag and pull it out whenever there is a sudden drop in temperature. It's available in various colors and you can also customize it by choosing up to 3 colors to make the scarf you want. Get adventurous and try this scarf! :) Plus, the 15% off coupon (SFETSYHOLIDAY2012) is still active till the 14th of this month!
I hope you all have a wonderful week!!