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So on Saturday I was in (small town an hour away) at a craft show. I normally don't do craft shows this long of a drive away from home, but I'm friends with the lady running it and she desperately wanted me there. So I'm there doing her a favor.
Most of the customers there were nice, they told me how pretty the quilts were, took a flyer about t-shirt quilts, asked a few questions and left. Many people thought I was a local and kept asking me questions about "great aunt Ruth - you know, you made a quilt for her!"
One older lady was sucky - she was passing out flyers for her church's craft show and surely everyone at this show would love to come. I was polite and said I'd think about it. Where she really got bad was that she hung out at the show ALL DAY. 9am - 6pm. She was in my booth at least 10 times. Every time she came in she mentioned her show again and then picked through my things. "Oh these are lovely...I'd know you'd sell a lot if you went to my show. I'd buy something from you if you went to my show." I had to bite my tongue because I was tired of hearing it over and over.
The big annoyance was my booth neighbors. One of them I'll call "A". She has a regular full-time job and does crafting for fun. So all her things are priced way cheap. Normally we get along pretty well but this time she kept loudly bragging to me about every sale she had.
Other neighbor "B" kept asking me all kinds of quilt questions - I honestly thought she wanted to order one with all the really specific questions. Then when I told her I did still have some custom spots open - "Oh no - I can quilt, I just wanted to pick your brain!" Really, you can quilt? Is that why you sell mass market candles? Cause you're such an awesome quilter?
And then my last neighbors - two older ladies I'll call "C" and D". They owned an embroidery machine and made tea towels and baby quilts. They were both retired and sold their things cheap. I am not kidding when I say every design they had in their booth was copyrighted. There was collegiate, Disney, Peanuts, Warner Brothers, you name it - they had it. Their quilts were hand quilted and priced really low. They saw my quilts and of course asked a lot of questions. It wasn't long before they started nit-picking. "Oh, you machine quilt - a monkey could do that! Do you actually sell anything priced this high?! You're crazy if you think people would pay that! You need to do some county shows or something to justify those high prices!"
I'll admit, I did snap at them. I told them that over the past 3 years I've won 9 ribbons in a statewide quilting competition, that this is my job - not a hobby and I need to pay my bills. And that machine quilting is just as artistic and difficult as hand quilting. I guess I made them angry because they moved their chairs and sat the rest of the day in the aisle, blocking people from going to my booth.
8 weeks left until Really Big Craft Show
Most of the customers there were nice, they told me how pretty the quilts were, took a flyer about t-shirt quilts, asked a few questions and left. Many people thought I was a local and kept asking me questions about "great aunt Ruth - you know, you made a quilt for her!"
One older lady was sucky - she was passing out flyers for her church's craft show and surely everyone at this show would love to come. I was polite and said I'd think about it. Where she really got bad was that she hung out at the show ALL DAY. 9am - 6pm. She was in my booth at least 10 times. Every time she came in she mentioned her show again and then picked through my things. "Oh these are lovely...I'd know you'd sell a lot if you went to my show. I'd buy something from you if you went to my show." I had to bite my tongue because I was tired of hearing it over and over.
The big annoyance was my booth neighbors. One of them I'll call "A". She has a regular full-time job and does crafting for fun. So all her things are priced way cheap. Normally we get along pretty well but this time she kept loudly bragging to me about every sale she had.
Other neighbor "B" kept asking me all kinds of quilt questions - I honestly thought she wanted to order one with all the really specific questions. Then when I told her I did still have some custom spots open - "Oh no - I can quilt, I just wanted to pick your brain!" Really, you can quilt? Is that why you sell mass market candles? Cause you're such an awesome quilter?
And then my last neighbors - two older ladies I'll call "C" and D". They owned an embroidery machine and made tea towels and baby quilts. They were both retired and sold their things cheap. I am not kidding when I say every design they had in their booth was copyrighted. There was collegiate, Disney, Peanuts, Warner Brothers, you name it - they had it. Their quilts were hand quilted and priced really low. They saw my quilts and of course asked a lot of questions. It wasn't long before they started nit-picking. "Oh, you machine quilt - a monkey could do that! Do you actually sell anything priced this high?! You're crazy if you think people would pay that! You need to do some county shows or something to justify those high prices!"
I'll admit, I did snap at them. I told them that over the past 3 years I've won 9 ribbons in a statewide quilting competition, that this is my job - not a hobby and I need to pay my bills. And that machine quilting is just as artistic and difficult as hand quilting. I guess I made them angry because they moved their chairs and sat the rest of the day in the aisle, blocking people from going to my booth.
8 weeks left until Really Big Craft Show
not for lack of effort on my (very crafty) mum & sister's parts! 
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