My First Market Stall

For those of you who have already been to Knit and a Bit's Facebook page, you'll be aware that I was camping at Wedderburn for the Labour Day long weekend.  The Wedderburn tourist centre was putting on their annual detector jamboree, for all those that like to find all that glitters that is gold.  Okay, they were actually looking for tokens for the jamboree, but the winner of that competition won a brand new Minelab detector so they can find the real gold.
Some of us are not so in to that kind of stuff, so Wedderburn Tourism Inc also organises a town garage sale.  For a token donation the community information centre let me set up a stall under their verandah. 

My very first market stall!!!

Gina, Gina quite contrary, how did my market go?

Unfortunately, whilst I approached it with a little fear, excitement and nervousness, and with an attitude that this would be a learning curve, and that even if I didn't sell anything, hopefully I would meet lots of people and have a good chinwag, I must admit that I was a teensy bit disappointed.  I think so many people had such high hopes for me that I wonder if I let them down??? 

I actually didn't realise just how much stuff I had.  My daughter helped me with the pricing.  We tried to work out an average between a small trash and treasure market and a higher end craft market for pricing as I'm not going to rewrite price tags for every different type of market and location that I might do.  This market caper must after all, be enjoyable and not too much of a chore.  As we pulled things out of the bags to price, photograph and add to the Facebook page I was about to launch (see previous post) I started to think that just one table may not be enough.  Turns out I was right, but thankfully the ladies at the Wedderburn information centre left a table out for me to add to the fold up table I took with me.
Talk about location, location, location.  The town map of all the garage sales  was not released until 9 am from the info centre on Saturday morning, so EVERYONE had to walk past my stall to get a copy.  Turns out that didn't help with the sales tho'.
First of all, I think that most of the people there were actually there for a school reunion (1950 to 1961), so most of the ladies already knew how to knit whatever they might want or need.  In fact I hate to think of how many centuries of knitting experience was milling around.  Quite daunting to think about it! Did I mention the info centre is in the old former Wedderburn school?
Secondly, it was a stinking hot day, so who in there right mind would want to buy a beanie or scarf???  which would perhaps explain why my two sales for the day were a tea cosy and a dish cloth.

Day two of the jamboree was Sunday and I was just going to relax, do a bit of knitting and wander around Hard Hill, but Robyn the amazing organiser and powerhouse of energy for the jamboree suggested I set up a stall near the stage and see how I go.  Oh well I thought, why not.  Being a family day, there were quite a number of people milling around.  Another stinking hot day, but this beautiful little blond girl, I'm guessing about 10 year old, came up and fell in love with a chevron beanie and scarf set.  She tried on the beanie and without trying to sell it, I do have to admit that it looked like it was made just for her.  thankfully some other people around me thought and said the same thing, so her Dad bought the set for her.  Despite the heat, she ran around most of the day with the beanie on.  A while later one of the campers at Hard Hill came up and bought a scarf and some baby sandals.

So all in all, not a bad weekend.  Unfortunately the photos I took of my stall, my first buyer and the gorgeous little girl are away in the clouds, or somewhere other than on my camera or on this blog.

But perhaps the best bit of all ... I've been invited back in October to have a stall at the Wedderburn New Age / Farmers' / Craft market!  Stay tuned for more info or go to http://www.wedderburnch.org.au/general/naturally-new-age-market-day for more info on last year's New Age market day.