Crocheted Flower Power

Being a female crocheter doesn't necessarily mean I'm girlie. There are girlie aspects to me, but often I find the colors of yarns and styles of crochet patterns I choose are not super feminine.

That said, when my friend Tammy asked me to look through my stash for a couple of beanies for two little girls, I was a bit flummoxed. I had beanies for kids, but nothing little girl specific--and definitely nothing anyone would call girlie.

Enter the crocheted flower! Make any beanie, scarf, sweater, bag or anything else a whole lot girlie-er with a couple quick, cute flowers. I'll have to post the patterns later, because I sort of made up these particular flowers on the fly :)

A somewhat blurry photo of a happy customer.

February Craft Fair Prep

My next craft fair is supposed to be in February. It's something my friend Dana was invited to--a kids and parents kind of thing. I have to make sure my inventory reflects the interests of the crowd that will be there.

My ideas for new items to offer include:
- baby hats with ribbons
- wrist warmers
- bracelets
- bulky yarn infinity scarves
- hacky sacks

All of these should be pretty simple to create and still be attractive to kids and parents. I'm also going to make my usual beanies.

The item I'm most excited for are the hacky sacks (or foot bags). They bring me back to the days when I would rock climb and camp in the mountains in Colorado. After climbing we would all hang out, drink beer and play a game of hacky sack. I wasn't very good, but it was still fun.

Crocheted foot bags - I'm going to create a theme for mine. Cat heads? ;-)

New Year's Crochet Projects

There are dozens of projects I want to finish in the first month of this year alone.

I've started with a slouchie beanie I've tried to start at least three times before. None of the yarns I tried seemed right. Now that I found the right yarn, it turns out I don't have enough of it. Unfortunately, I needed to order the yarn from the Webs online yarn store, and their deliveries take weeks instead of days.

Urban Revival Beanie

While I wait for my skeins to arrive, I'm working on last year's Mystery Crochet-Along afghan. As I finish the pieces, I realize that the afghan isn't going to be as big as I thought. It's really more of a throw than a blanket.

I am interested in learning to block. The only reason I haven't done it yet is because most of my projects have been hats and scarves that didn't need blocking. This afghan requires a lot of blocking,

2012 Waverly for Bernat Crochet-Along

Finally, I have a whole bag of buttons that need fingerless gloves. I have one set that I'm three-quarters of the way through, and a ton of yarn to make more little wrist warmers.

I wonder what everyone else is working on...? Time to peruse Ravelry.com ;)

Xmas 2012 Crochet Gifts

For the first time, I actually finished the majority of handmade gifts I wanted to make for the holidays. 

Starting with the cute little purses I made for my nieces. I went with pinks and purples for Audrey, who has a bit of a girly streak. I used bright, fun colors for Jane who is constantly curious.

San Francisco Purse Pattern

For my nephew Jack, I made a monkey backpack. His mom says he's going to use it for the lunches he takes to school.

Monkey Backpack Pattern

For my parents, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend I made scarves in the colors of their favorite football teams. Go Pack! ;-)

Sideways Stripe Pattern

Xmas gifting

I love making gifts for my little nieces and nephew. Maybe it's because they attend the Waldorf school and are being raised by humble parents that they don't seem to take much for granted, and they are truly thankful for everything you give them.

This year I'm going all out. I'm making little purses for the girls and a monkey backpack for Jack. I'm also making finger puppets for all of them, and new scarves and hats to replace the ones from last year that their mother shrunk.

Here's a link to the San Francisco Purse pattern. It's only $4.80. Totally worth it. I changed the colors for the purses for my nieces. I'll post pictures when I'm finished with them.

I found the pattern for this cute monkey backpack at a little Etsy shop called HipChickCrochet. She has some really cute stuff. 

Craft Fair Help Sites

I don't think we could have done as well as we did at Fog Fest if it wasn't for the Internet. Seriously. From sharing photos of display and craft inspiration on Pinterest, to organizing our lists of thoughts and things to do on Google Docs, we definitely benefit from all the web has to offer.

Best of all, fellow bloggers gave us tons of advice and ideas. Here are a few of my favorites:

Craft Fair Display Tool Kit
A quick check list of all the stuff you might (and probably will) need for your booth.

Indie Fixx: 14 Craft Show Display Do's
Great advice and photos for setting up a unique and interesting looking booth.

FlickRiver Craft Fair Displays
I can't say enough about getting inspiration from the way other people set up their booths. There are so many great photos on this site.

Mermaids Closet: The Ultimate Craft Show Guide
Lots and lots of valuable information here :)

And finally
The Ultimate Craft Show Preparation Link List
Find the solutions for any craft show questions you couldn't find answers to anywhere else.

Working My First Craft Booth

FogFest 2012 was an amazing experience. It was the first time I've run my own craft booth (in collaboration with my good friend Dana of course) and we rocked it! All of our research and planning really paid off. 

1. We started by finding a small festival that had the right audience for our products. We decided on FogFest because it was family friendly and it was close by our homes. We applied and waited to be accepted.
2. Once we were accepted, we went online and read through the multitude of websites that give advice on how to do a craft fair booth. (I'll list my favorites in another post.)
3. Then we browsed tons of photos and did some hands-on craft fair snooping (see earlier posts in this blog) to find out how we might want to set up our booth.
4. At the same time we looked at the layout of other booths, we also looked at how much product other booths featured. That was really helpful in figuring out how much inventory we needed to create.
5. In Google documents, we created and shared lists of things we thought we needed, that way we could each comment and keep track of what we were each thinking.
6. Dana and I met up at least once every other week in the months before the festival, if only to check in and see how we were each doing on inventory creation. 
7. Three weeks before the festival we got together at Dana's house and setup a mock booth. We didn't have all the pieces, but this mock setup helped us figure out what we still needed.
8. A week before the show we did another mock setup in Dana's backyard to fine tune the missing pieces. We made a master list of everything we would need to bring to the festival with us.
9. The night before the festival we gathered everything at Dana's house and checked everything off our master list and packed it in Dana's mini van. 
10. The first day of the fest we showed up at our booth location a couple hours before the festival opened. Our tent was already set up by the festival people (we paid extra for that). 
11. Setup for the booth went smoothly because we were already so organized. 
12. And thanks to Dana's husband and my fiance, we were set to go long before the first people walked through the gates.

We had so much fun and learned so many lessons, which I will list out in the next post :)