A minor brush with fame

Yay! I've just packaged up "I Ate Too Many Buttercups" Hoot, who is flying off to a lovely bloke in America tomorrow.

He was looking for a present for his niece and thought my Hoot was just the ticket. Hip hip hooray!

I made up a little drawstring bag for Hoot to go in, too. It's bright yellow with white polka dots, and I've threaded it with a lovely pink ribbon. That should brighten up the parcel a bit.

Right now though, I'm off to make a few new ones for the Made N Thornbury market on Saturday. I want to make sure I'm all stocked up with gorgeous little toys. I really love this market, it has such a nice community vibe to it and there are always lots of people who come to visit.

It's going to be a squeeze this Saturday, because after the market finishes at three in the afternoon, I've got to pack up my stall like lightning, shove all the boxes in the back of the car My One True Love will drive up, and then together we will spin off to the airport with tyres screeching and the wind in our hair.

I'm catching a plane to Sydney, you see, a little more than an hour after the market finishes. I'm off to Sidders for a girls' weekend with Mountaingirl and the Sister Of My Heart. There's Avenue Q in there somewhere (the Muppet musical), and hopefully a whole lot of Project Runway - Mountaingirl's taped the en-TIRE series and - bless her - is waiting to watch it with me, I so admire her restraint as I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to demonstrate such self control!

Hey, that reminds me - the guy from the last series, the one who styled like Vivienne Westwood, the one who came second? I saw him at the Rose St Artist Market last weekend! He was wandering around looking at things (not my stall, probably not a lot of call for children's items in his life I'd say) and if I'd been capable of moving or speaking past the massive, massive headache I was trying not to vomit through, I'd have run up to him and screeched You Should Have Won!!

Lucky for him, I was rooted to the spot. Maybe next time .....

Climbing the sewing mountain

TUULI Hoot








DAISYCHAIN Hoot

KING HENRY the Hoot

It's funny how work piles up sometimes without you realising, isn't it?

The day before we left for Coffs Harbour, I gave a Snugglebaby cot quilt to a colleague at work for her leaving present as she headed off on maternity leave. It was the present from the team, and I got the pleasure of putting it together.

There were lots of ooohs and aaahs as she unwrapped it, which was very gratifying, and before the morning tea was over I had orders for another four. Aha! The lightbulb went on. So this is the market for my lovely quilts ... corporate colleagues with no time to shop for themselves, rather than passers-by at my craft markets who have lots of time to browse and choose. I think I'm onto something.

The only fly in the ointment - and it's a very, very small fly in the scheme of things - is that each person needs their quilt in the next three weeks or so. Eep! That's a lot of sewing. I did all the cutting-out on the holiday (I was forbidden from taking the sewing machine on hols, as My One True Love said he would prefer to spend the holiday with ME rather than the machine, if that was alright by me, which of course it was ... somewhat grudgingly....).

So now I'm sewing them together. I'm one down, three to go.

But I also have five markets coming up in the next four weeks, so I have to make a LOT of stock for those. It means a new range of doorsnakes and doorstops. It means fresh soap packs. It means lots and lots of new cushions, and it especially means a bunch of new toys. A big bunch. That's a lot of sewing ... and never mind the full-time job as well!

I was just about holding it together without wilting under the pressure (the pressure! the pressure of it all!) when I got a wholesale enquiry last night through Etsy.

I've never had a wholesale enquiry before, it's my first. And he wants TWENTY Hoots as a start. Ye gods and little fishes, as the mother of the Sister Of My Heart used to say! I am equally proud and happy, and slightly overwhelmed. I've done three, posted at the top here.

Does anyone have any advice for me on how I should price the Hoots for wholesale, by the way? I would usually charge $35 each at my craft markets and I know I have to discount for a big order, but by how much? They take me about three hours to make, so I'm obviously going to lose money on them individually, but for the chance to sell a bulk order into a new market, it's a price I think I'm prepared to pay.

If I just knew how much to discount, then I could relax and enjoy the thrill of getting the order, rather than stressing about it like I'm doing right now!