Our Second Trip to the Fair (I mean Market)

Last Saturday we had our second shot at selling our wares at the Norwich Farmers Market. It was eye-opening.

Having learned it only takes about 15 minutes to set up our booth, we didn’t leave home until about 8:30 for the 9:00 opening time. It was a nice morning, a little cool (great for selling yarn) and not nearly as overcast as two weeks earlier.

A lot of people show up early, but they tend to know what they want – produce, mostly – and seem to do little wandering around. We did get some early activity and sold two skeins. It was “Harvest Day” at the Market, which meant that there was a calf and two chickens immediately behind our booth (all in pens) and the Market Manager would pick winning tickets from a bucket every half hour or so. He had passed out tickets to vendors to be given to their customers (somehow he missed us). We were donating a skein of yarn, and the winner came by pretty early to collect her prize – unfortunately she was not a knitter.

 

Unlike our first day at the Market, this week I brought along several of the scarves I’ve woven over the last 18 months, and Peg brought a few cowls she had knit. We talked about how much to charge for the scarves, and I settled on $60 for most of them. One – the long black one with red and green highlights that is on our Etsy store – I thought should go for more mostly because the yarns I purchased for it were more expensive. I priced it at $75.

Peg sold our first scarf while I was chatting with our neighbors Sarah and John who had stopped by to introduce themselves. Neighbors Jim and Linda also came by – their son had parked cars during the wedding. It’s becoming clear that the Market will be a great way for us to get to know folks better.

One woman was interested in purchasing a ball of roving to use for stuffing for a doll that she is knitting, but her husband had run out of cash. Maybe next week. But he came by later holding a $20 bill. Unfortunately, Peg was serving another customer and I was chatting with an old guy who wanted to tell stories about when he had sheep. $20 bill walked away. Darn, I missed a sale. But $20 bill came back a little later. I apologized and Bob told me he understood – another new acquaintance and another sale.

Around 10:30 I wandered next door to the Woodcock Farm Cheese booth. They have great artisanal cheese – some of it from sheep’s milk. She asked me how we were doing, and talked about spinning her wool. I asked for a quarter pound of cheese – $5.00. She asked me the price of roving – $10.50 for 4 ounces. She gave me $5.50 and I brought over a ball of brown roving – our first “barter”.

Sometime during the morning we sold another scarf. Around noon, a mother came by with her two daughters. The younger one was very excited about my favorite scarf – brown corriedale (not ours, but very similar) mixed with green from Muscle In Your Arm Farm. Mom also took to one of Peg’s cowls. When she asked if we take credit cards, I got a feeling I could charge maybe a little more for the scarf. Peg was talking to another customer, and it took some effort to get her to give me a price for the cowl. Mom and daughter were totally oblivious to all this, so when I told her $100 for both, Mom couldn’t care less. Swiped it through the reader on the phone, and we had our final sale of the day.

 

Total sales: $261.00. Peg told me I needed to get my butt back on that loom. The Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival is only ten days away and my sparse inventory of scarves got depleted by three on Saturday.