hoop-tastic happenings

As I mentioned in my last post, my life seems to be all about prepping for the market these days! I finally got back up and running for the last Saturday in June and now after my second week I am totally in love! The Kamloops Farmer's Market is full of friendly and talented artisans (as well as loads of veg and food vendors) and brings in loads of people for a morning of local shopping! I was a little hesitant how my booth would do at the market as my past experience of selling in town wasn't very lucrative - but I was pleasantly surprised with some awesome customers who decided to shell out their hard earned cash on my plethora of geekery! Hooray! 

I've been trying to spread out my brand a bit and make a wider selection of goodies in different price ranges and one project I have fallen for is making embroidery hoop art. I made a few back in my Bastion Square Victoria market days but figured I could ramp it up a bit and do a wider range of hoops.  I really wanted to take great pictures of them to show you each one in detail - but as I said - I've been a busy girl - so instead I will just share the snap shots I took of hoops displayed at my craft booth.  Yay! Here we go!

Here's the basic set up of my hoop display. A few pegged onto a white rack I bought from Diaso and two baskets holding the rest to peruse. I tried to go for variety a bit (so not ALL anthropomorphized creatures) and really wanted something sassy out front (that didn't actually offend anyone).  This also gave me a perfect chance to start using up some of my vintage fabric stash too!  Take a peek:  

I put another white rack with some hoops on it on the other side of my table to get a little extra height in there and (as always) a bit of extra colour! One lady stopped by my booth and told me that, "Your booth is a hard one to walk past and ignore!" Yeah! That's exactly what I'm going for! Rope you in with colours and cuteness and hope you enjoy what you see! 

With all the compliments I got from my first market I decided to make a few more hoops for my second go - and did a similar set up again (with a few of the new hoops in there). Here is the end of the table: 

and the main hoop display (with an emphasis of feminism apparently):

I've now sold ten of these lovelies and am excited for them to go to their new homes! Best of all - I'm not feeling like I'm super ripping myself off by selling them for too little either - and priced them based on how long they took me to make (so small ones starting at $16 and going up to $38 for the big babies).  Yaaayyy! I'm on cloud nine with embroidery hoop excitement and even got around to listing four of the duplicate hoops I made in my etsy shop! Oh my! 

So now I'm hoping to hear from you. What are your thoughts on embroidery hoop art? Do you have any hanging in your house? Which ones do you like best? and (most importantly) any ideas of other hoops I should make? I'm trying to come up with cute or witty phrases to put on them but apparently my brain has been tapped out. What do you think? 

all the hoops!

My preparation for the farmer's market season isn't quite going as planned.  I was hoping to be up and running a few weeks ago but apparently it's taking a bit longer.  I still have a bunch of set up pieces Fraser is working on making for me - and when attempting to make new tablecloths for my tables I royally broke my sewing machine.  Seems like it will be a few weeks until I get my darling Pfaff back - but in the meantime I'm working on stocking up a storm!  I've been wanting to make more embroidery hoop art pieces for a while now so no better time than the present! Check out my stack:

Oh my! I'm now working on finishing off the edges and then tagging and pricing! So exciting! Once they are all finished I will do a reveal.  I really tried to appeal to different types and ages of people so hopefully you will agree! What have you been working on? Are you as terrible at estimating time to do things as I am? 

hello

Apparently I've been neglecting my poor blog much more than I should be and have decided to pop back in and share a few of the crafts I've been working on in the last while.  I've been buying up vintage sheets from thrift shops for a few years now (why yes - I do tend to hoard) and decided to bite the bullet and start hacking them up and using them! Turns out it wasn't as painful as I thought it was going to be because now I get to enjoy a snippet of vintage goodness every time I walk through my front door! How lovely! I also decided to go with "hello" as my greeting instead of the traditional "welcome" because it seemed to suit me better (for some unknown reason). Now I just need to get around to putting the rest of that vintage sheet stash to good use. What have you been up to lately?