MK Handmade and Vintage

What a wonderful event this is - one at which I feel privileged to exhibit.  The talent on show is phenomenal - though sadly I rarely get the opportunity to wander round and see everything.

Jacqui, ably aided by Andy, does an amazing organisational job, and on arriving on Friday night to see the stalls waiting to be filled, there was a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation.  What a spot - right in the middle of this huge shopping centre, and bathed with light.  My "spot" changed this time, to an absolutely ideal position, on one edge and facing the new Tiger store. 

One of the wonderful things about this event is that people have come to the centre to spend money!  Many seemed not to be aware of the event (clearly they have not read any local papers on news sites!) and seemed pleasantly surprised to find the stalls. 

I had many "returning customers", which was so encouraging.  A couple of pupils from my school dropped by, and I had some very interesting and supportive conversations.  Having brought along two sacks full of toys, I left with only four of the original set.  I sold at least 7 hippos, a similar number of elephants, two giraffes and a lion. 

I now need to make a huge number of toys before October's event.  I will do it - not least because a number of people have already told me they want to visit me then and stock up for Christmas!  I also need to restock a lot of the small items - bookmarks, purses and owl phone cases - which I suspect will be in demand for Christmas stocking fillers.







Thank you so much MK and Jacqui and Andy - can't wait to return.  Now, if only I could have a few extra hours every day between now and then....

Mini boxy bags

These two bags were fun, but also challenging to make, because of their small size.

 They were made from a pair of toddler pink cord trousers.  The smaller of the two is barely 4" wide, and has popper pockets on both sides.  The other is a little larger, but not much.

I made both with very short cords, as I suspect they will appeal to a young audience!

Third new-style zippered pocket bag

By now these have got quite easy to make!
Tutorial here.

Oh, and please admire our home grown apples - looking nearly ready to pick!

More pachyderms

More additions to the family - I suspect by the time this appears on my blog these individuals may well have sold.  I am trying to work out the correct ratio of doorstop to soft toys.  I add bags of sand to some of the elephants, while others are "just cuddly" as I tell customers.  I haven't yet had the correct ratio though!

These three are all doorstops.  The pockets make a good hiding place for the key after locking up!

Noah's Ark Academy receive their lamps

The arrival of these photos made my day!  This is the second of the four schools in Utange to receive ten solar lamps as a result of my fund raising.  Noah's Ark Academy is a school for 3 - 8 year olds.  It was set up by Florence, and initially she taught the children in her house, also feeding them daily.  The children come from poor homes, and often their parents cannot afford to pay the school fees - and as a result, the teachers often cannot be paid.  It was hearing this, along with recognising that without electricity at home the job of marking and preparing lessons must be a huge challenge, that led me to allocate some of the lamps to teachers in each school.

A group has been set up to help Florence and the school, and as a result of their fundraising three classrooms, a kitchen and a toilet block have been built.  I hope that next year some of the training courses / workshops will be run at Noah's Ark.

 

   

The children, with their lamps and their guardians.

Two of the teachers with Florence (far right)

Juma, who helps administer the work of the charity which helps Noarh's Ark Academy.

   

Kempston Fun Day

This is the third time I have attended this event, organised by Bedford Lions.  It seems to get better and better!  Yet again, we had lovely sunshine for the event, and lots of people attending.

 As ever, there was plenty of space, and I was able to use some of my recent display purchases to the full.  I have a new banner, which is just the right size to go on my gazebol

 

I bought two of these laundry hangers, which work really well for displaying bags where I have lots of the same style.

 I finally managed to fiond affordable S hooks of the right size, and these made it so much easier to display assorted bags.

 I added to my stock of bibs, and it was good to be able to fill up one stand with them.

 I also restocked the pocket purses on a string recently, making that display look much more impressive.

Another great addition was having a helper!  Kerena was a star - and said she enjoyed it!

Just to make the day practically perfect, my friend Kathy brought her dog Pye along to see me.  I have to say Pye was rather confused, as I usually take her out for a long walk when I see her,  As a PAT dog, she was in her element being fussed by visitors!

Another £215 raised for Utange, and a really enjoyable day.

Return of the rhinos

A remake of a really lovely pattern from Funky Friends Factory.  I can't recommend this pattern highly enough - it is really well designed (so the finished product actually looks like a rhino) and the instructions are brilliant.

Boxy pocket bag

This type of bag sells really well.  Strangely I had forgotten about this variation, and only realised when reviewing my tutorials page when I found this was not linked to it.  You can access the tutorial here.

It is a fun way to use up pockets.  The hardest part is making sure I have a variety of cord lengths - and even when I do, I can almost guarantee I will not have the one length that one customer wanted!

This one is quite a plain, unisex pouch.  It has a pocket on each side and quite a long cord.

Another zipped pocket bag

You can find the tutorial for this here.

I made three of these initially, but am intending to make more - I think they will sell quite rapidly.  I chose more pockets from the garage earlier today - I have a tub of pockets, cut out in various sizes and ready to use.  As soon as I have finished the 15 elephants and 10 giraffes I already have underway, I hope to get round to them!

Recycling fleeces

Along with the wonderful donations of jeans (seized by Trading Standards as designer imitations), Lance Haggith recently passed on a number of hoodies and other fleece lined items, also seized as "designer rip-offs".

The idea with this was to use them to line bibs, using the inside of the garments.  Some of the seized jeans were used for the front of the bibs, with various embroidery designs used.  I will put these up as individual items in later posts.  The hoodies etc were cut up for the linings.

The batch of items pictured produced about 20 bib linings.
The linings were then sewn, with the logos hidden inside the bibs and the fleecy lining used as the bib backing.

Lots of learning points from this:
There are only a few parts of the hoodies suitable for cutting up - the sleeves are great, as is the back, but the pouch on the front makes part of it unusable. 
Trousers produced very little usable fleece.The images on the front of the bibs are often very hard to sew over - they seem to stick to the presser foot and stop the fabric from moving.
The fleece is of much better quality than the cheap blankets I was using - and it comes to me free!

Thanks Lance!