All the fun of the Fair

 

I enjoy crafting, but there are only so many things you can give away to your friends and family as gifts. I tend to make things as sell them a few of times a year at craft fair.

The first conundrum you have when deciding to sell your craft items is the big “HOW MUCH” and it is the hardest as there are many factors to consider. To name a few:

1.       Your area/venue. I am sure that if I placed some of my items in an upmarket shop in the middle of London I could easily charge £20 for one of my soft cozy handcrafted sock monkeys, but at a stall at the local primary school even £5 can seem a bit expensive for some people.

2.       Your target market. If you are planning to sell things to children (or even as an impulse buy for adults) try to keep them at pocket money prices. The £1 stores often sell things at £1 which you can buy for less elsewhere, it’s the idea of the price that makes people more likely to impulse buy. 

3.       Many people (i.e. those who do not craft) seem to think that hand crafted gifts are easy and cheap to make and so they should cost less than things from normal retail outlets. Most customers don’t think about what goes into making something as simple as a candy cane reindeer. It involves buying brown pipe cleaners, red pompoms, googly eyes and the candy cane as well as having the glue gun and sticks. If I told them it costs me 19p for the material for each one I am sure some would still expect me to sell them for 25p each and forget about how long it takes and how many times I burn myself with the glue gun.

Another important thing to consider is what you are going to sell. Try to find something which is not easily available in your area. Last year I did a great trade in Minion toys and hats, however this year these are both available in our local stores so I have not made any. The market is flooded with Frozen items this year so I have stayed away from that theme too.

It seems nice to make lots of themed items using Santa, snowmen and reindeer at this time of year but think about what you will do if these don’t sell, you might not have enough friends and family to give them all to and storing them till next year may not be an option if you are short of space like me. Some items like candy canes do have a long shelf life so you may have the option of storing them till the following year, but make sure you bag them and not the use by date.

My most popular items this year have been candy cane reindeer and my mix and match Matchbox Bears.
Allowing people to pick the colour of bear, then choose from a number of pre made beds, followed by a choice of matchbox covers seems to have made them more popular than packaging them up myself. This does take up more space of my table but as I do duplicates of all the boxes I only put out a few at a time.

The only Christmas themed items I made were the Reindeer and the Reindeer poop, the other items were those which I sell year round Like my sock animals and apple cosys.

Crochet apple cosy pattern

This one is a bit later than planned as I have been having problems trying to publish it. The pattern could still be uses for ideas other than a pumpkin so I am hoping it will let me post it this time.Sorry the pictures have not been cropped and edited but this seems to be the only way it will let me post them at the moment.

I tend to feel that children get too many sweets during the Halloween season, so I like to try and give them something different. Being a crafter I tend to knit or crochet a different gift each year.

I had previously made a pumpkin bag with a tangerine inside and a ghost finger-puppet lollypop cover. This year I decided that as apples are such a big Halloween item that I could modify one of my apple cosy designs. 

These are my original designs (yes I know one has a chocolate orange but it’s the same size as an apple and doesn’t go off when you forget about it in your bag of wool)  You should notice that the eye of the alien face is a button, this is how you open the apple cozy. 

I had decided that I wanted to do a pumpkin design for an apple cosy but my problem was what I could do to incorporate the button into a pumpkin face. Eventually I had the idea to make the pumpkin similar to the apple design with a lid and a spider shape round the button. 

I put the spider on the back so it wouldn't interfere with the face, and if I had more time I would have added some green in the center of the lid for a more traditional pumpkin look.

This pattern is written using British terminology. If you are used to American patterns change DC to Sc I made this for a larger apple so if using a smaller one you could miss the last increase row or even use a smaller hook size.

I used 2 strands of double knit (8ply) and a 6mm hook to give a chunky feel and more protection for the apple.

If you prefer to join your row ends add add a slip stitch and Ch1 to each line of the pattern.

Main body

Round 1: make a magic circle and Dc 6

Round 2:  Work 2 dc in each stitch (12)

Round 3 : 2dc in first stitch dc in next, repeat 5 more times (18)

Round 4: 2dc in first stitch dc in next 2 repeat 5 more times (24)

Round 5 2dc in first stitch, dc in next 3, repeat 5 more times (30)

You may wish to place a stitch marker (or a contrasting piece of wool) here to help count your rows.

Round 6-14 dc all round.

Slip stitch to finish.

Lid

Make as for main body rounds 1-5 only. At some point on round 4 do a chain stitch to make your button hole, remember this will also add an extra dc at this section when doing round 5. Alternatively you could try to crochet slacker so that you can stretch the gap between two dc to make you buttonhole, make sure your button is not too big, you may wish to test this method to see if your stitches will stretch enough and your button will fit.

To Finish

Sew 6 of the edge stitches of the body and lid to attach them being careful to position your buttonhole (if you made one) opposite side.  If you have not made a buttonhole push your button or one slightly larger than you plan to use) through a gap to make a hole. I used a single strand of double knit (8ply) and 2 stitches for each spider leg to give a better shape.

You can use your imagination (or Google) to pick the face for your pumpkin, I sewed mine using wool but you could use felt. I would advise against using beads or more buttons as there is a chance that they could bash the apple.

If this post works this time I will put up another post soon with the pattern for the leafs and the alien version. if anyone would like to do them for Christmas gifts.

Progression of design

 I can't believe how long it is since I last posted on my Blog, it shows how hard it is balancing a full time job with being a mum and trying to make money selling your crafts. I am afraid that the time spent making things to sell takes priority over Blogging about making things.

Recently I haven't had a chance to do much of either this year due to illness, but I am on the mend so get a chance to do both.

Some of my friends seem to think that when they want something I can just whip up a pattern in a few minutes and make something for them, they don’t seem to realize what it takes (for me anyway) to create a pattern for knitted of crochet items. A good example is my attempt to create an owl chocolate egg cosy.

 

This was my first attempt. It took a couple of attempts to get the correct number of stitches to fit round the egg but I didn’t have to rip it out all the way at least This one I decided looked more like a Furby than an owl, so I suppose I will keep the idea in the back of my head in case anyone takes a fancy to it. You may think that I should just add wings to make it more owl like however I make these to sell along with other egg covers and did not want it to vary too much in materials or time so that they could all be sold at the same price.

 

 My second attempt did have a bit more of an owl look however I felt that it needed something a bit more to emphasis the chest area.I knew he wasn't right so I didn't even finish off his beak, poor fellow.This was where I had to be a bit more creative with my stitches which can be hard as believe it or not I am still quite a novice when it comes to Crochet.

I only graduated from traditional granny squares to being able to read patterns a few years ago when I had to make a Christmas toy which I could only find crochet patterns for. I remembered seeing a cluster stitch a while ago when seeing some tutorials on YouTube (the great teacher of all things crafty) and decided it would be a quick easy way to give some texture and definition to the owl. Again it did take a few attempts to work out how may clusters to use and how wide they would be in the pattern but it worked out well in the end. The effect is not picked up very well in the picture but my friend was very impressed that I managed to make her an owl for the same price as the other designs and that was the point of the exercise. If anyone wishes the pattern post in the comments section and I will edit this to add it. Hopefully I will get enough time to do another post before Easter and show a few more designs and include the patterns.