Going to market: Textile Market in Erding

Last Sunday I went public with my hand-dyed fabrics at a one-day textile market in Erding, north of Munich.

The day began early, leaving home just after seven o’clock. It was a one-hour trip to get there, and I wanted to be there well on time for a leisurely set-up before the doors of Erding City Hall opened at 10 a.m. Just after the start of my journey I had the pleasure of seeing some very nice fields of morning fog. If I hadn’t been going somewhere with a destination in mind, I could have taken hundreds of photos:

A friend of mine had commented a couple of weeks ago at how astonished she was that I was handling this market business in such an organized manner. To be honest, I myself was impressed with myself about that, too. I had actually pulled out the calendar early in the year, marking clearly at which point which fabric selection had to be finished – after all, the fabric club’s March collection was shipped two weeks ago, too. And, even more surprising, I had managed to stick to that plan. Who would have thought...

Part of the diligence might have been due to further travel plans, too. I am leaving for a three-week-trip to the US on Friday, and I was scheduled to take part in a computer class out of town on Thursday, for which had signed up before the trip to the US came up. (Luckily, that class was cancelled today due to lack of participants. A gift of two full days!) It used to be no problem at all, only a few years ago, to do that: plan many things in quick succession to each other and still not feel stressed about it. I realized that that’s not possible anymore. I don’t consider myself old, but I learned this time that it is more sensible to give oneself a little more leeway inbetween! It doesn’t all have to happen within one week.

But the market planning and organization went really well indeed. The fabrics had been completely dyed a few weeks ago, stored on cardboards and placed in the boxes which were the means of transport and also the medium of presentation, to shorten set-up. So putting it all together was simple indeed and could be handled by myself. I knew the premises because I had been to the market before.

This was my stall before I started to set it up:

 And less than two hours later, just before the market opened, it looked like this:

Although nobody signed up for a membership with the fabric-club right there, I’m satisfied with the results. Of course, I could have sold even more fabrics, but I figure since I was there for the first time, it also takes a little time to build something like a clientele. Many people were interested, especially the snow-dyes were in demand and received attention, and the wide colour-range of the hand-dyed unis received a lot of praise. What is left of them I will now put up for sale on the website, too.

And I will definitely give it a second shot in September, if I can get a stall again. Some of the other vendors said that the September date draws quite a few more visitors. Never give up after a first attempt!