Sunday, July 5, 2015

hoop-tastic happenings

As I mentioned in my last post, my life seems to be all about prepping for the market these days! I finally got back up and running for the last Saturday in June and now after my second week I am totally in love! The Kamloops Farmer's Market is full of friendly and talented artisans (as well as loads of veg and food vendors) and brings in loads of people for a morning of local shopping! I was a little hesitant how my booth would do at the market as my past experience of selling in town wasn't very lucrative - but I was pleasantly surprised with some awesome customers who decided to shell out their hard earned cash on my plethora of geekery! Hooray! 

I've been trying to spread out my brand a bit and make a wider selection of goodies in different price ranges and one project I have fallen for is making embroidery hoop art. I made a few back in my Bastion Square Victoria market days but figured I could ramp it up a bit and do a wider range of hoops.  I really wanted to take great pictures of them to show you each one in detail - but as I said - I've been a busy girl - so instead I will just share the snap shots I took of hoops displayed at my craft booth.  Yay! Here we go!

Here's the basic set up of my hoop display. A few pegged onto a white rack I bought from Diaso and two baskets holding the rest to peruse. I tried to go for variety a bit (so not ALL anthropomorphized creatures) and really wanted something sassy out front (that didn't actually offend anyone).  This also gave me a perfect chance to start using up some of my vintage fabric stash too!  Take a peek:  


I put another white rack with some hoops on it on the other side of my table to get a little extra height in there and (as always) a bit of extra colour! One lady stopped by my booth and told me that, "Your booth is a hard one to walk past and ignore!" Yeah! That's exactly what I'm going for! Rope you in with colours and cuteness and hope you enjoy what you see! 


With all the compliments I got from my first market I decided to make a few more hoops for my second go - and did a similar set up again (with a few of the new hoops in there). Here is the end of the table: 


and the main hoop display (with an emphasis of feminism apparently):


I've now sold ten of these lovelies and am excited for them to go to their new homes! Best of all - I'm not feeling like I'm super ripping myself off by selling them for too little either - and priced them based on how long they took me to make (so small ones starting at $16 and going up to $38 for the big babies).  Yaaayyy! I'm on cloud nine with embroidery hoop excitement and even got around to listing four of the duplicate hoops I made in my etsy shop! Oh my! 

So now I'm hoping to hear from you. What are your thoughts on embroidery hoop art? Do you have any hanging in your house? Which ones do you like best? and (most importantly) any ideas of other hoops I should make? I'm trying to come up with cute or witty phrases to put on them but apparently my brain has been tapped out. What do you think? 

3 comments:

  1. Your bold black lettering looks awesome! Is it embroidered, or a felt appliqué? I really like "dream big little one" (font combo looks great!), and I love the fabric that's behind "be brave" in the first picture... hope you picked something great to say on that one! Witty phrases are so tough- it's hard to find the balance between general appeal and not totally overused, but you've done well so far!

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    1. Thanks Sabrina! For the "dream big little one" hoop the "dream big" is cut from felt and then sewn on and the "little one" is hand embroidered. I really like the look of handwritten stitching but it isn't quite as powerful and clear as the felt lettering. I have a few ideas I'm sitting on for new hoops but you're totally right - I don't to get cliche.

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  2. They are all so incredible, Kate! I especially love your fancy cat, the Whisky Tango Foxtrot one, and the "girls just wanna have fundamental rights" one. Amazing!

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