Greetings to everyone who has stopped by today. I hope that you are all doing well and are in the holiday spirit, whatever holiday it is that you celebrate this time of year.
I will give you an update on my Green Market experience since I have been able to set up there for a couple of months now. I would like to preface this update by letting you know that this has been my personal experience with everything that is going on in my own life and trying to fit things into my schedule. Every vendor will have their own experience and I acknowledge that.
Personally, I thoroughly enjoy setting up my stall and being able to put my sewing on display to sell. I find it therapeutic to be able to talk to the people who come to peruse my items and purchase them. They express their opinions of my work and I can explain my process and experience to them. I have told the market manager that it is the best money I have ever spent on therapy!
That being said, I do want to explain the title of this post. Before I decided to become a vendor and start selling my things in the market, I had amassed an enormous amount of items that I had already sewn. Things that I put my time and effort into perfecting as a way to pass time and to learn as I was home taking care of the things that needed my attention there for a few years. The sheer number of items I had sewn was quite large! Thanks to the encouragement of a few friends and family members who had been witness to the many years of accumulating items, I decided to go for it.
Now, after selling for a few months, I find that I have sold a large number of the stock-piled items, and it has been extremely fun being there and having the experiences I have had. However, things in my life have not changed enough to allow me the time that I need to keep up with the sheer demand for my sewing weekly to be able to set up every week. So, where I had time and plenty of things to sell at first, now I have way less time and way fewer items to sell every week.
I have come to the realization that I can not meet the demand for my hand-sewn items on a weekly basis. Where I originally wished for a lot of attention and customers, I got exactly what I wished for! I get phone calls for sewing as well as folks who just bring things by the stall to drop off. I get so much that I have to turn away custom work because I have no time to do it. I had originally thought I would be lucky if I made any sales, and soon found out it is far more work and takes far more time than I have.
I am realizing that I can not earn enough money with the sewing that I sell at the Green Market to be able to make a living with it. I am sure many of the vendors are in similar situations. This would be why the hand-crafted items at these markets are so sought after. The vendors have little time to create them and are doing it as a hobby. Sadly, this is where it is going to end up for me as well.
I am not saying that I am going to STOP selling at the Green Market altogether. But I am only going to do it when I have enough items to warrant setting up to do so. It is looking like I may be following through with a MONTHLY setup rather than weekly. If you need further details as to why, I will happily share them in a follow-up post. It has been difficult for me to come to this realization and I have 2 more weekends to get through for the year before I realign myself for the 2024 year ahead.
Thank you for reading to this point. I will continue to post the items that I make in the gallery. If you see something that you are interested in, feel free to reach out to me through Facebook or E-mail.
There will be another post within the next 2 weeks. I look forward to this holiday season and I hope you enjoy yours as well. Thanks! ~ Penelope
