We just finished up a 3-day event as a vendor at Reston's inaugural Winterfest. The event turned out great, and we were very successful! This was our second ever event, and first event that was heavily focused on handmade items. Attendees first took a walk through their light displays before arriving at the vendor village, where we were located!
We met so many great people and really enjoyed all the conversations. This event gave tons of experience in juggling multiple customers at once, cold weather, nighttime, and... RAIN. So. Much. Rain.
This brought new challenges, and it was difficult to keep positive for a bit. But eventually the rain stopped, the customers came, and we did even better than the first night! While the first night was the nicest weather, it was a Thursday. Friday was rainy... But Saturday. Saturday. We did so well! It was a bit warmer out, a weekend, no rain... Our stand was very busy.
The blessing of this work is that it can be very personalized. The curse is the same. Despite hours (and hours) of prepwork for the market, my work doesn't end when the market ends! Yes, we offer tons of gifts that are ready to be given, but the best seller is always (and probably will always be) the custom pet embroidery.
There is nothing quite like having your pet on an ornament. I LOVE creating these. But they take some time (understatement). While they take 30-45 minutes to stitch out, that doesn’t include cutting jump stitches, hooping the fabric, sewing the excess in the back, and of course designing the ornament. I take your photo, draw your pet, digitize the file, and then start the embroidery. The whole process is probably around 1.5-2 hours to be honest. A lot of that is because I truly want to get your pet's appearance just right! If it doesn't make you immediately recognize your pet, I'm not satisfied.
Okay, enough rambling, I have 30+ ornaments to do!
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