2012 show over

The 2012 Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair is over for another year, and for me it was a raging success. My sales were beyond what I had hoped for, and I had many enquiries about classes from students, shops and guild groups. My book “Portuguese Whitework” was extremely popular, with many having seen it in the craft show advertising.

I think part of the attraction for my stall was that it was one of very few embroidery stands. There was a lot of quilting, some beading, some papercraft, some general craft, some knitting, but very little hand embroidery. And if you wanted whitework, I was pretty much it!

A friend who visited my stand said, “Now don’t take this the wrong way, but your stand seems very ‘restive’.” (I didn’t take it the wrong way – I thought it was a lovely thing to say!) She compared my whitework to the colourfulness everywhere else, and said that mine indeed stood out, because of all the white.

My big display of Portuguese Whitework on the back wall of the stand drew lots of attention, both from embroiderers and non-embroiderers-but-embroidery-admirers alike. I had lots of people come into the stand to look at the embroidery, and I knew that some of them would never attempt anything like it, but that was fine, because I don’t mind people admiring it! And from a simple sales point of view, people attract people, so if there are lots of people crowding around my stand, others are going to wonder what the fuss is all about and come over to see for themselves.

At 5pm last night, the show closed. The procedure then is to clear the floor of all members of the public. Exhibitors and their helpers MUST don high-vis jackets, as the site is then deemed a worksite. When all exhibitors are wearing their jackets, then they open the huge roller doors to the loading docks, and people can start accessing their vehicles to take stuff away.

The loading docks are always full, with long lines of cars, so we find it just as easy to park downstairs in the carpark and use my trolley to take things down to it. While it takes longer to and from the car, it takes less time than being in the loading dock queue!

So as soon as 5pm arrives, all exhibitors madly start pulling everything down. I packed up the remaining books, the remaining fabric, kits, patterns and thread, and then started pulling all the embroidery off the walls. My husband dismantled the bookshelves and grid mesh panel, and took loads to the car. We were finished and out of the show hall by 6pm, which we were pretty pleased about.

Thanks to the lovely ladies in the stands beside me (Barrie and Judy from Wonderfil Specialty Threads, and Saffron at Saffron Craig Fabrics) for being concerned for my toileting, and offering me chances for a “rest break”! You are lovely ladies, and I felt very cared for!

Thank you also to those of you who read this blog who did come and say hello to me, and identified yourselves as my blog readers! It was lovely to meet some of you. Now I can have an idea of who I am “talking to” when I write this, each day!

All over for another year! 🙂 Today I’ll be back to normal family routines, and I’m just itching to get stuck into writing my next book!