I have just returned from several days in Karlsruhe, where I had a vendor's booth at the Nadelwelt, a big and international event for patchwork and crafts.
I came back with a good result and lots of learning experiences.
For one thing, I learned that when you book a 3-m-front for your stall, 3 m is not necessarily what you get. I was located between two other stalls - both open to their other sides - and the separating walls between us, which we each used from our respective sides, were both situated on my floor space. Now my custom-made wooden holders for my fabrics measure 1 m each, they are meant to hook up for stability, and I was counting on putting three of them next to each other to fill up the space. But when you have 3 m of wooden holders, and only 2,94 m of front, that doesn't even make a tight fit - it doesn't fit at all. So I ended up juggling myself through the days like this:
Not exactly a pleasure to look at, but as I was standing inside the booth, I didn't see it, and so I stopped thinking about it, after I had been really annoyed on the day when I put everything up.
I had absolutely no time to look around at the exhibitions, so I can't give a report on what could be seen. Being alone in my booth I was glad that every once in a while some known face appeared, and sometimes when necessary I could ask them to keep an eye on my things and take a little run to the ladies'. Very nice of the organizers - they had put up a sign on one of the toilet doors 'reserved for vendors', so we were officially allowed to break the always long line and I could return quickly.
Whenever there was a lull in visitors - which did not happen often - I thought about how I would do things differently next time, for example I have decided that I will alter the layout of my booth, to avoid that annoyance of the missing 6 cm.
I had taken a number of packages of the newest collection of the fabric club, a variety of shades of purple.
They are now sold out - which is a first. I have not yet been sold out of the collection packages before the collection itself had been sent out to the subscribers! This only happened yesterday, after I returned home.
A number of people signed up as new subscribers for the fabric club, which is an additional plus to my overall result. So I am quite content with this adventure right now.
Yesterday was spent unpacking, getting things back in order. Today so far has been dedicated to office business, and later tonight, when I return from being a soccer mom, I hope to get back to the sewing machine.