Weeks 40 & 41 or Pick an Apple

In an effort to get back on schedule, I made 4 bags. It feels like cheating to make the same bag over and over again. But hey, I've made it all the way to October and I've fallen back a bit on the schedule. Just one week. Which can be made up by going back and counting the number of bags I've made instead of the number of posts I've written. I need to cut myself some slack here. To be honest, I didn't think I'd make it this far.

Another way to look at it is that I've figured something out. A friend asked if I wanted to sell at her church's craft fair in early December. I'm considering it, and trying to apply the lessons I learned selling at craft fairs before I had kids.

1. Nobody likes a sourpuss. If you're going to sell something, you have to talk to people.
2. Variety may be the spice of life, but too much spice will sink a craft table. Pick one thing and do it well.
3. People are cheap, especially at craft fairs. Price accordingly. Or make some impulse purchase items.

If I am to do this craft fair, I will need to swallow my not-so-inner introvert and be nice to people for a whole morning. I need to make a LOT of one or two related things. And I need to make a LOT of some little throw-away thing that kids and cheapskates can pick up, feel like they're doing a good thing and buy.

So I made 4 of the Apple Bags. Not iBags. Bags that fold up into an apple shape. This time around, they're all red, but at some point I will make green apples. They're actually the perfect bag all around.

1. I can make lots of them relatively easily, although this time they took longer than I expected to sew up. And that was only partly due to the fact that my sewing table also has my computer on it.
2. I have a TON of lightweight material that isn't really suited to most other bag patterns.
3. It's a cute concept which will store and display nicely.
4. With the scraps, I can make little coin purses, gift bags, whatever, to sell as impulse items.
5. They satisfy MY need to sell something useful and unique. Yes, I got the fruit concept somewhere else, but I believe I have made it mine.

Buy it here.

I'll let you know in a week or two whether the fair is going to happen or not. And what I'm making out of the scraps. Until then, save your pennies and save the 1st of December for a winter fair. And hold your horses, because I feel like I've bought myself 2 weeks off from writing with this crop of bags.

Buy it here.

Buy it here.

Buy it here.