I took off work on the 8th and skipped church on the 9th to vend my wares at the 25th-anniversary quilt show put on by my quilt guild, Trillium Quilt Guild. It was in the Village Hall in Sister Bay. It got high praise from everyone who attended!
I participated on the planning committee for the quilt show, and last fall I had asked about doing my Alzheimer’s fundraiser at the quilt show. I was told it would be a conflict of interest then so I wasn’t planning on selling anything there. When we had our final planning meeting a couple of weeks ago, someone mentioned that I would need space to vend, so I thought the decision had been reversed, and I worked feverishly to get everything priced and set up to take and quickly asked my boss at the Noble House for Saturday off. I sent an email to the woman who was heading up the committee and asked her how much room I would have for setting up the things for my fundraiser, and I got a response back from her on Friday morning saying that she hadn’t realized what I was planning to sell and reiterated that it would be a conflict of interest since they were planning to take donations at the door to offset the cost of the materials for the show. I had to work on Friday at the Welcome Center and had planned to go set up right after work, so I jumped out of bed and switched plans. Fortunately, I had a bunch of leftovers from trying to sell at Christkindlemarkt the last couple of years, and most of them were priced already.
To the left of the center, you can see two black and white pillows. Those are part of a set of four art deco pillows I made and have never tried selling before. I sold three of them on Saturday and a couple of hot mitts. That was $80 for the day! I knew that Sunday was probably going to be slower because the tourists usually head home on Sunday, but I was hoping I could at least sell the 4th pillow (the one on the left), so I spent $20 of my profits on a panel of Door County that the owner of Barn Door Quilts designed and sold at her booth at the show. I ended up only being able to sell a $3 hot pad on Sunday. I was very disappointed. The other vendor in the room I was set up in sold $500 of her stuff over the weekend. Of course, she’s been selling at craft fairs for years and knew the kinds of things people would buy. Her stuff took up 4/5 of the room, so she had a lot more to choose from as well.
On Sunday, I spent a couple of hours volunteering at the show. I was wearing white gloves and trying to make sure that no one touched the quilts. I would show them the back sides if they wanted to see them. When people entered, they were given a sheet of paper and a pencil to vote on their favorite 2 quilts. The comment I heard most often was, “How am I supposed to choose? They’re all so beautiful!”
In two weeks, I will be doing another show where I’ll be able to do my Alzheimer’s Association fundraiser for The Longest Day. There is still time for you to donate and get one of my placemat sets at The Longest Day/Wanda’s Journey.