To market I go!

Come on out and get your Christmas shopping done at the Northern Artery Christmas Bazaar. Saturday, 30 November, 11am-4pm, St Martin's Hall, Northumberland St, NEV. It's going to be epic.

The market and the craftermath

A great big thank you to everyone involved in Saturday's Midwinter Arts Bazaar! It was such a nice introduction to the Dunedin craft scene. Can't wait to do the Christmas sale!

This was the scene back at home shortly after the market ended; it's what I like to call 'the craftermath'. I'll post some pics of my sewing studio later this week so you can see what it normally looks like.

Teetering tower of quilts ready for market

This is just a selection of the quilts I'll have on hand at tomorrow's Midwinter Arts Bazaar. In addition to these gorgeous quilts, I'll have baby dresses, sleep sacks, stuffed bunnies, greeting cards, notepads, wrist cuffs, patchwork coasters, tote bags, tooth fairy bags, upcycled pouches, brooches, hair accessories, and more. Phew! I hope it all fits on the table.

Stop in and say hello to me and my crafty friends: Tinker and Little Minx!

Northern Artery Midwinter Arts Bazaar
St. Martins Hall, Northumberland, North East Valley
Saturday, June 29
11 am - 4 pm

Eftpos won't be available on site, so be sure to talk to me about alternate payment arrangements if you've got your eye on one of my quilts. Always a good idea to bring plenty of cash to a craft market. Just sayin'.

My cup runneth over

So, my last sale in Regina has come and gone. As some of you know already, our Prairie adventure is drawing to a close and we'll be heading back to BC at the end of June. While I'm looking forward to reconnecting with my BC buddies, the move means I'll likely have to scale back on the amount of sewing I've been doing. For now, the plan is to continue to work on custom orders in my spare time and gradually put the items I have already made into the shop.

This town/province have been so supportive of my little crafting endeavour, so I'm quite sad that I won't have the chance to do another craft fair here. I just want to send a big ol' thank you to everyone here who has come out to say 'hi', stood at my booth with me getting chilled to the bone, kept me company during the lulls in the crowds, had a nice thing to say about my stuff, or decided to buy one of my items. It all means a lot to me. As the title of this post says - my cup does indeed runneth over.

And speaking of cups, [how's that for a segue?] the cute little one in the picture above was made by Carole Epp (one of the members of the Flock and Gather Arts Collective up in Saskatoon). Some of the f&g group made it down to this weekend's Cathedral street fair, so I popped over to their booth to pick up this nerdy little cup for Abner. She's obsessed with getting her own drink of water from the bathroom sink these days. Not surprisingly, she's been a little extra hydrated since getting this cup.

Cathedral Village Street Fair today!

Poster by Caitlin Mullan of Articulate Ink

The Cathedral Arts Festival street fair is on from 10 am  - 5 pm today. Stop by and see me at my booth on 13th Ave between Athol and Garnet. The first person to bring me a large double double will get a free thumbprint greeting card!

All hands on deck...

Things have gotten rather busy around here lately (hence my unplanned absence from the blog). The success of the Flock & Gather sale a few weekends ago has translated into hours and hours of sewing in order to get ready for this weekend's True Knit craft sale. Suddenly my little hobby has become a full-time gig with me putting in 30-40 hours a week! Even the youngest in our little family has been recruited to help mommy stuff bunnies. On top of that, one of us is turning four tomorrow so there are parties to plan, cakes to bake, gifts to buy, goody bags to assemble and countless other errands to run.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must step away from the computer and go sew up six more reversible baby dresses and then I will be done!

Flock & Gather they certainly did!

HUGE thanks to everyone who came out to St. Joe's Hall in Saskatoon for this past weekend's Flock & Gather Spring Handmade Market. The whole event was just one big ol' amazingly fun experience.

The one photo I managed to take of my own booth

I don't know what I was expecting beforehand, but it certainly couldn't have lived up to the show that the Flock & Gather Craft Collective managed to put on. From the venue to the decorations, to the stellar lineup of vendors, the whole thing reminded me of a slightly smaller version of Vancouver's Got Craft?

A rare lull in the crowd

The crowd was pretty consistent the whole time, so I barely managed to step away from my booth to grab a bite to eat let alone take photos of all the awesome handmade goodies at the other tables. Instead, I've shamelessly borrowed a few photos from the Flock & Gather blog just so I can share the awesomeness of some of my favourite crafty folk:

Shauna Buck

 
  Boolah Baguette

 Cathy Terepocki

my table neighbours Walden Sweet

Carole Epp

coucou salut

The Maker of it All

Oh man, I could just keep going! Instead, just pop over to the Flock & Gather blog and check out the vendor profiles they ran leading up to the sale. You won't be disappointed.

Hi ho, hi ho, off to Saskatoon I go: Flock & Gather sneak peek

If you're looking for me this weekend, you'll find me at the Flock & Gather show up in Saskatoon. Here's a little sneak peek at a few of the new Milkybeer items that'll be making their first appearance at the show.

CMYK linen pins.

Upcycled pouches made of men's shirt cuffs.

Tooth Fairy pouches.

Upcycled sleep sacks made from men's shirts.

The peas and carrots quilt.

My first solid-top quilt.

I've been sewing like crazy so there's much more coming with me, but this should give you a taste of what I'll have. Hope to see you there!

The True Knit countdown is on!

Got plans for May 5? If you're in Regina, be sure to stop in at the Cathedral Neighbourhood Centre for True Knit 4: The Crafters' Revolution. The holiday show was awesome and I bet this one will be even better. See you there!

Kicking off the spring shows

Spring is definitely in the air - birds are returning from their southerly vacations, the snow is gone (yes, even here in Regina), people are walking about in their shirtsleeves, and more importantly, posters are going up to promote the first of the spring craft shows!

First up...Flock & Gather's Springtime Handmade Market on April 13 & 14 in Saskatoon! Can't wait!

Chip off the old block

Had to laugh (and beam with pride) when I ventured into Abner's room the other day to find her playing 'craft sale'. She was selling blankets "just like mommy!" Love her merchandising skills - look at the expert rolling job she did all by herself! By the way, she wanted $50 for the orange blanket but the pink was only $10.

Quilts aplenty...

...if 'aplenty' equals 5, that is.

I don't think I managed to share the finished results for most of these quilts yet, so here you be. Five beautiful, hand-stitched baby quilts for your viewing pleasure.

It never dawned on me before now, but I think I can officially call myself a quilt designer (as opposed to just a quilter). I have never purchased or even followed a published quilt pattern. Aside from seeing some in books, I don't even know what one would look like. Each of these quilt designs sprang from my very own little grey cells (that's a Poirot reference in case you missed it).

Whenever I start a new quilt project, the first step is always to sit down with a few sheets of graph paper, a pencil, ruler and, most importantly, an eraser to plot a few things out. This step is invaluable for figuring out exactly what's going to be involved in creating a particular design - better to realize a design is going to be a nightmare at the paper stage rather than once the rotary cutter has done its thing. In theory, this should also help me determine exactly how much fabric will be needed. Yet even so, I seem to find myself back at the quilt shop mid-project with surprising frequency.

This quilt is part of a new project series I'm starting. The fabrics were part of a fat quarter of the month club I joined recently at a local quilt shop. Each month I pick up a new package of six fabrics and use them to create a brand new, one-of-a-kind baby quilt. This is October's quilt (the first in the series). I have the fabrics for November, but haven't designed the quilt yet. What I like is the challenge of working with fabrics I wouldn't normally choose. Let's just say, I'm much less fond of November's fabrics as I was with October's.

I think this next one is my favourite. It busted through a bunch of my scraps (which is always a bonus) and uses a beautiful Kona solid in grey as the main fabric. Word on the street is that one of the local quilt shops will be getting a shipment of solids very soon! This is a vast improvement over a few months ago (have I really lived here long enough to say that?!!?) when they looked at me funny when I asked where they kept their Kona solids. They'd never heard of them, let alone were they carrying them in their shop! I've been forced to do a few quilts without true solids now and though they are beautiful, they're just not as appealing to me.

I will eventually get around to putting these in the shop, so message me [heymilkybeer at gmail dot com] if you want to call dibs on any of them!

True Knit...Truly awesome

Thank you to everyone who stopped by True Knit 3: The Craftermath today! You all helped make my first craft sale experience a most memorable and enjoyable affair!

I was so hopeful beforehand that this event would be a positive experience for me, and I wasn't disappointed. From event organizers Cassie and Cookie who welcomed me straight away as I walked in early this morning, to the lovely ladies in the booth next to me who chatted with me during the lulls, and all the friendly folk who stopped by to shop, browse or pay a compliment, everyone had such kind things to say about my booth and my products. Yay! Here's how the setup looked for the day...

Everything you see here (except for one quilt) was created since Labour Day.

Those bunnies were manhandled by half of Regina today.

I told people to ask and, boy, did they ever!

Cards were a hot item...had people laughing too!

The new Milkybeer banner made from an old wool blanket and vintage sheet.

Hand-stamped hang tags.

I wish I'd had more of a chance to get out and see what other vendors were selling, but it's hard to man a booth on your own. What I could see looked awesome! I do know that I wasn't the only newbie there. Looks like the crafty community in Regina is starting to boom these days (just like the town itself).

My view to the right...

across the aisle...

and to my left.

When we started this whole prairie adventure thing, I set myself a series of personal goals. One was to sell my handmade items at a craft show. Goal number 1...check! Another was to open an Etsy shop. I've done this one too, however, it's empty at the moment so don't go looking for it just yet, please! The third is to sell my products in a store. After today, I think I can safely say I am one big step closer to making that happen too.

Now I am going to put up my feet and rest a while and sip some tea. G'night.