This past weekend was the Na-Da Farm Barn Sale, my first official solo booth. Going into it, I was getting more and more nervous and stressed. Last minute, my sister-in-law was sick and couldn’t make it, but fortunately Matt was able to come in her place. During set up, I started getting so overwhelmed that if my sister and Matt hadn’t been there I might have just laid down in the grass and started crying. Emotional much? Instead I had to keep chugging along. The tent I was supposed to borrow didn’t work out, so I bought a new one. The buckets of sand we brought to anchor the tent down were worthless and the high winds across the farm fields caused, not only my tent to try and take flight, but also all my products inside. Fortunately Anne Marie’s son brought by two large cinder blocks to keep me anchored. My weather fears going into the sale were mostly rain related. The plan for my framed pieces had to be altered, and instead of each piece standing up on display they had to lay flat on the shelves. Believe it or not, by the end of the first day we all had wind burn and chapped lips.
But it was only a rough start, I promise. The rest of the sale was great. This sale was unlike any sale I’ve done before. Get this: both days before the show began there was a long line of people waiting to get in and get first dibs on everything as soon as the gates opened. I know… what?! What a difference a well promoted show makes!
This show was so refreshing. A beautiful property, elegant booths, and kind customers. The back of my booth was facing the entrance and the back wall of my booth had my yoyo quilt hanging from it. There was a pretty steady stream of people approaching from behind marveling at the quilt and a few people explained to us that it was the first thing people see when they were coming in. Lots of people had questions about it, what is it, did you make it, how did you make it, etc., etc. It’s a yoyo quilt. Yes, I made it, starting when I was 15 years old, and my mother is a quilter and provided lots of the scrap fabric for me. And finally, you sew a seam around a circle of fabric, pull the thread tight, then squash the fabric flat, then sew the individual pieces together, much like my framed pieces inside the booth.
It was a great show! Not only did I recover the cost of the booth, but the cost of the new vendor tent AND MORE! Last year when we went to the sale, I felt like there were a lot more handmade items. This year, I think I was one of only a couple of booths that were entirely handmade and not vintage or repurposed/revamped vintage. Still, I did really well. The jewelry, art reproduction/prints, and paper products were very popular.
I was able to snap a few instagram pictures, but because I was manning my booth, I didn’t have many opportunities to take pictures of the rest of the event. Fortunately, there is a lovely slideshow here at the Na-Da Farm blog. It was a great show and I’ll hopefully start listing the remaining product on etsy soon.
