(Photo of my table at the beginning of the show. I ended up removing the chairs, and moving the pillows to the back of the table with the others. I also moved the table so it was more on a diagonal and more inviting to people. What you can't see is the clothing rack to the left of the table with all the aprons.)

Well, aren't I terrible for leaving you hanging for over a week. So sorry about that! I have a tendency to stick my head in the sand and push through something when I get overly busy or stressed about something, and forget to do anything else. Not the best of habits, I'll admit. It took me longer than I expected to get ready for the craftshow I was in on Saturday, even to the point where I took three days off of my day job last week, and worked about 16 hours each of those days to get even basically ready. I didn't finish as much as I wanted, but it ended up being fine. I wanted to offer more variety, but I don't think that it affected my sales in the end.

Now I know that in order to prepare for a show, I need at least a month's prep time since I've only got my evenings and weekends to work on preparing. And in those evenings and weekends, I want to also have time with my husband, time for gardening, house stuff, and just general relaxing. It got to the point last week where the dust bunnies in the house got so big I had to wade through them to get to my studio, and the dog, who was often sleeping under my feet while I ironed or sewed, no longer even noticed all the fabric bits and threads falling on his head. My sewing machine put on about 1000 miles, and I made about 14 last minute emergency trips to Fabricland.

(Close up on some pillows and tea towels and toys to the right )

Things I can learn to do better next time:

• outline exactly what types of products and how many of each (it's great that inspiration struck throughout the process, but figuring out how to do new things wasn't exactly the best thing to do when I needed to just make things)
• Once I know what I'll be making, and how many, figure out supplies - make sure I have enough thread, grommets, twill tape, 'manusmade' labels, etc
• make sure when I order felt or linen that it isn't arriving two days before the show
• organize craft studio before I start getting busy, instead of working around all the crap that had nothing to do with the show
• prepare blog posts beforehand so I can post them automatically when I get busy, so my favourite people don't feel abandonned
• don't forget to bring the food I bought in preparation for the show - I had bought a bunch of Lara bars and was going to bring water bottles and a sandwich - I forgot all of it in the morning haze of trying to focus on remembering to bring everything else I needed at the show. Thank goodness Alea from My Real Food Life was there so I could buy some gluten-free and dairy-free goods to eat!
• make sure the vehicle I am driving to the show actually fits all my stuff - the clothing rack I brought to hang the aprons only just fit in our wagon once we pulled and pried and warped the metal to make it fit. may need to buy a new clothing rack...

Even with all the lessons I learned, the show was a huge success in my eyes. I met so many great people, and was really able to focus in on my target customer (definitely not hipsters, and a little older than I thought).

(Close up on some of the embroidered tea towels, text towels, and toys - dinos and whales and elephants)

Highlights:

• figuring out my target customer - by the end of the show I could guess which people would approach my table and which would walk past.
• finally meeting people in person, such as Sue from Sweetstitch!
• meeting Annie Bananie from anniebananietheclown who not only makes the cutest felted items ever, she's a creative business force that brings together entrepreneurs for support and inspiration
• meeting Joanna from Dolci gluten-free bakeshop and potentially setting up a business relationship with her....
• Seeing Gabe from Fish on Fridays' son give her a violin performance since she was unable to go to his concert that day as she was at the craft show. This sweet little 6-year had about 20 of us at the back of the hall mesmorized for about 10 minutes while he played unabashedly.
• so many more connections!

I want to thank everyone who came to visit me or let me know they were thinking of me - your support was much appreciated!