The Harford Artist Gallery has a small things sale coming up. In thinking about what I could contribute to that I thought - crab coasters! I am planning on selling them in sets of 4 with 2 big crabs and 2 little crabs. I'm going to need to learn to tie pretty ribbons to pull them together. That might be its own challenge.

I may have gone a little ornament happy. I meant to just make a few and then I really got into it.

Most of the ornaments are made with cutters from De La Designs. Debi makes some of the cutest designs.

It's finally not so oppresively hot that thinking about winter doesn't make me cringe. I made more soup mugs yesterday. They always look so giant when they're wet. They're big once they're fired, but right now they look so huge.

I only have one show in November right now, but I'm thinking about doing a second. The thing that's giving me pause is that I have 3 weekends in a row of shows in December. Do I have enough holiday stuff? Do I have enough pottery period? Despite the fact that I have literally never sold out at a show, I cannot stop my brain from stressing out about the possibility.

I started making this top a while ago. I am not entirely sure where the yarn came from. I made a top with this yarn a long time ago and it ended up stretching so much it was like a dress on me. I think I ended up giving it to my sister as a beach cover up. Knowing that the yarn would stretch, and that I didn't have a ton, I made this a little smaller.

The front I made a little more detailed with clusters of 3 half double crochet stitches. My original plan for the back was to do the same, but given the amount of yarn I had left I addapted to some chain stitching.


I'll obviously have to wear a cami or tank top under this, but its a nice simple top to add to my closet.

I was listening to a podcast on a long drive and it made me wonder what the ratio of show cost to sales is for my shows. Last year was my first year doing shows and I've done many more shows this year than I did last year. This is just some basic math which takes the cost for the show divided by the sales I had for that show.

Most of the shows I've done are in the 10-15% range. I've done two shows this year that cost significantly more. Both of those shows I felt like I wasn't getting my moneys worth. The first one was a 5 day show (over 2 weekends) that had a ton of foot traffic, that just wasn't buying. I've been told that show was good in the past, but all the vendors were saying that sales were way down. The second was a 3 day show that I had to travel for. It was significantly better last year, but this year they had a tent sale that competed with the vendors. These shows were well run, but ultimately I was struggling with the return. They are the highest % below too - 28% and 19%. The 28% doesn't account for the fact that it was 5 very long days and the 19% doesn't account for my travel fees. I'm going to add up the travel fees and add that in.

I see a lot on various threads that your sales should be 10x your booth fee. If I take out those two shows then I am getting that on average. I still have more shows to do this year and I'll keep looking at the numbers as I do. It's going to shape how I approach shows next year. I also want to figure out a way to figure out time as a factor into this measurement. My local market is 6 times a year and is only 5 hours. Other shows are much longer and it can feel like they drag.

I feel like artists often don't want to think about the business side of things, but having metrics and using them to improve is really important to growing your business.

I sold out of all of my mushroom jewelry boxes. In making some more I decided to add a flange inside to make them just a little better. I also made the lip a little wider. These still need holes, but they need to setup a bit more first before I do them.