The Fair!

I do, of course refer to the marvellous Vintage and Handmade Fair which, if you've been reading my blog at all in recent times, you will know was taking place yesterday.

So, on Thursday morning, off we set with an extremely full car to Somerset to stay in our cottage for a relaxing few days.  I purposely did not take any crafting supplies with me so that I really would have a rest before Saturday.  And rest I did!  Thank you everyone for all your good luck wishes in advance of the Fair and I'm sorry if I didn't get to reply to some of you because we have no internet connection at the cottage.  

Let's whizz on to Saturday then.  Up very early before 6am, re-pack the car, and set off to Chipping Sodbury, just a bit late.  It was beautiful scenery on the way there, in glorious sunshine too, which did help to take my mind off things because my tummy was really quite full of nervy, excitedy butterflies!  

The setting up was quite frantic and it soon became clear that I had an awful lot of stuff for my little table!  Anyway, I did my best.  It is at this point that I have to admit that the only photos I took on Saturday were of my own stall.  I took these literally moments before people started coming in and once the doors opened at 10am, it was really very busy for most of the day and I would only have taken photos of the backs of people's heads!  So, I hope you might like to see the photos I did manage to take.  Lots of it will be familiar!

Jayne's husband kindly roamed the hall (when the poor man had not been press ganged into washing up for the tremendously popular and successful tea and cakes stand) and you can find his photos  via Jayne's blog here.

I had a really wonderful day at the Fair.  What more can you ask than a chance to be shopkeeper (every little girls' dream surely?), meet wonderful people and scoff fabulous cakes?!  A very big and heartfelt thank you to all of my customers, existing and new, and to all those who stopped by to have a good natter.  It was lovely to finally put some faces to names and to meet lots of new faces too.  It doesn't get much better than chatting about sewing, crochet and vintage, does it?  I posed for a very amusing photograph for the local paper, with lots of stuffed lavender hearts dangling from my fingers(!) and met one of the directors of the Sew Hip/Inside Crochet magazines who asked to take one of my crochet hook rolls to feature in their magazine and asked if I had any sewing features I might like to include.  

I managed a quick whizz round the Fair ten minutes before closing time and realised later with regret that the only downside to having a stall is the fact that I couldn't shop at everyone else's.  I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have "peddled my wares"(!) at the Fair, a massive thank you to the inspired organisers Jayne and Michele.  It's a marvel that not only did they have all their own goodies to collect and make but they managed to organise such a successful event, too.  I was lucky enough to have a lovely neighbour at the Fair in Jayne and on the other side, the tea and cakes stand!   How I am now regretting that I only managed one piece of tiffin... 

This is turning into an Oscar speech, sorry about that, but mega thanks also to my Mr HenHouse for making my easel and various other items for me and helping to lug all the "stuff" into and out of houses, cottages, halls and a car.  Luckily, there was a fair bit less on the way back.  I think the poor Munchkin was particularly grateful for this, shoe horned as he was into the only seat in the back of the car (the rest having been folded down with big boxes on top) and with a very large green glass jug of peonies on his knee.  He was quite pleased with the pocket money he earned this week!

We stayed locally last night and enjoyed catching up with my Mum and Dad who had travelled down to the Fair, too.  Today, we even managed to fit in a car boot sale!  More about today's finds soon...

Here's to the next Fair and if you didn't make this one, you really must put the next one in your diary without delay!