View from the RiverFront Market

My Saturdays this summer have become a ritual. Wake up too early for my liking and pack up for the Farmer’s Market. On the way to the market, pick up two french toast bagels and one container of hazelnut cream cheese, to share with SciFi Man. Spend four hours at the market making friends, people watching, and buying delicious local produce. Our selections vary from week to week, but we always buy something from our “lettuce guy” and the “tomato man.”

The tomato man always draws faces on his unusually-shaped tomatoes. I love that little detail.

After the market, we go out to lunch and then go home for a post-market nap. I love that my Saturdays have fallen into such a nice, predictable pattern, even though the details of people, produce, and restaurants change from week to week. I also love getting an opportunity to interact with my customers in person. Today was a great day for selling my reusable grocery bags (what better place for one of those than the farmer’s market?), and SciFi man was kind enough to capture a shot of one of my bags in action. I love knowing that someone finds usefulness and beauty in something I’ve made.

Reusable Grocery Bag Action Shot!

Do you have a Saturday (or any other day) ritual? What do you do? If you are in central Illinois and don’t already, you should consider adding the RiverFront market to your Saturday ritual. I’m there every week–come say hello!

One of the regular vendors at the RiverFront market always makes these gorgeous bouquets. My day is a little bit brighter for seeing them!

I have been away from the blog for longer than I planned. The past couple weeks have been busy ones. I cut my hand washing dishes and required a few stitches, and that slowed me down for a bit (and got me out of dish duty for awhile!). Then SciFi Man and I traveled to Minnesota and Wisconsin to visit family for a week, timing our trip to fall in between farmer’s market days. We had a great time visiting, sight-seeing, and horseback riding. Horseback riding was a first for me, and one of those things on my must-do-before-I-die list. It was a lot of fun, and I’d love to do it again! I’m not sure if my sister-in-law can say the same though–she was kicked by one of the horses! Fortunately, she wasn’t terribly injured.

The photo above is from our day at the Science Museum of Minnesota. The whole place was filled with children, except for this tug boat that was tucked away in a corner. It was quiet, peaceful, and had some beautiful views of the city and river. While we were there, we visited the Titanic exhibit, viewed our heart rhythms, tested our sense of smell and played with light.

Today was my second week at the Peoria RiverFront Market. The weather looked a bit iffy early on, and we got a few sprinkles (which the musician sang about until the rain stopped – It’s only raiiiiining, not a reason to stay inside!), but then the sun came out and things were lovely. Market traffic picked up considerably once the clouds began to clear, too.

A dear friend came to help me out at the market today, so that SciFi Man could get a bit of extra beauty sleep. Between eating farm-fresh strawberries, people watching, and interacting with vendors and shoppers, I think we both enjoyed ourselves. There were plenty of dogs (even one that had it’s own stroller to ride in!) and babies walking (well, not the babies themselves, of course) through the market, and one parrot, who seemed to be pretty popular with everyone. I definitely love being able to talk with the people who stop at my booth. Several people asked about items I don’t currently have, and that has given me some good ideas to work on for next week. I’m starting with zippered change purses. My helper gave me a few good ideas, too. I’ll keep you posted on how those shape up this week.

I am still working on how best to set up my booth. It will definitely continue to evolve as I expand my available items. I like having my tables in an L-shape, but I think perhaps shoppers would prefer if they were just flat across the front of the booth, so that they don’t have to “come in” to my tent. I don’t know. What do you think–would that make a difference to you? My booth is on the grass, between the parking lot (where all the food/produce vendors are) and the river, which makes for a lovely view for me. I’ll do my best to remember to take a photo of the river for next week.

Second, Anodyne Design will be appearing at the Peoria RiverFront Market every Saturday for the season, June 6th (this weekend!) to September 26th. Be sure to stop by and say hello! SciFi Man and I went to the RiverFront Market almost every week last summer to buy most of our produce. Local veggies (and pasta, and cheese, and, and, and…) are so fresh and tasty. This is definitely a Market you’ll want to visit regularly throughout the summer.

I better get back to sewing so I can be ready for this weekend!

Kim at True Up was so suprised by how many people entered her giveaway for scrap bags that she decided to have a side bet on twitter (@trueup), and invited her followers to guess how many comments she would get by the end of the giveaway. I bet 833, and someone else bet 879, and apparently we were both exactly 23 comments away from the actual number she received. Which makes us both winners! Hooray for winning, and those scrap bags look fabulous. I can’t wait to see what sort of goodies are hiding in there.

This also gives me an excellent opportunity to mention True Up, which is a great blog about all things fabric. Just recently, I’ve learned all about silk and gotten a peek in the Quilt Market. True Up also regularly posts about US and international fabric shop sales, and it’s been great having all that information collected and neatly presented. It’s one of my regular blogs that I follow in my feed reader, and it you haven’t checked it out, I recommend you do so now.

Here’s a picture of my table set up. You can click on the image to see a larger version at Flickr. I would have liked to have more “height” on my table, but that will have to happen another time. Also, I totally didn’t have a chance to iron my table covers. Just pretend you didn’t notice all the wrinkles! Despite these things, I think my table looked pretty good for the show. There were a lot of jewelery vendors there, and a few bag makers, but nothing quite like mine. All in all, it was a nice day and good practice for my upcoming summer at the Peoria RiverFront Market.

I have found lots of helpful information online.The Etsy forums have lengthy discussions on Craft Show Success Tips and What Not To Do At A Craft Fair. I gather some of this is really a matter of personal opinion (are you allowed to sit, or must you stand at all times? Do you talk to your customers, or leave them be?), but other things seem more general, like being sure to mark your prices and making sure you don’t smell. I also found some great advice at Hello Craft, Indie Craft Shows, Get Crafty, and Serenity Art.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to set up a booth. Fluffy Flowers has a great series on setting up a craft booth at a farmer’s market. And Flickr has a couple groups devoted to craft fair booths: Arts & Craft Fairs & Shows and Show Me Your Booths.

I’d love to hear your advice and tips on selling at a craft fair, too! Please leave a comment, or send me a tweet! Now, back to that building up stock bit…

 A bunch more mini fabric covered journals. Ahh, linen. So pretty.

I especially like that I made this for a tiny 4″x6″ notebook. It’s very portable, which I think increases the likelihood that it will actually be remembered and used. I think it’s even small enough to fit into one of my wristlets. Awesome.

Action Shot: