THE FRIDAY REVIEW: DAWN HART OF STONEPIT CRAFTS

Hi everyone

This week's Friday Review is about someone I met through Twitter and has become a good friend who jumps in at the deep end end, literally, to help out with the Godalming Bazaar events.  However, in 'real life' Dawn is a crafts person and my review is focusing on one aspect of her creativity.  In addition to making beautiful greetings cards, Dawn is also a fantastic knitter producing great items from hat-bands to flower-pot covers and bangles to babies jackets.  Over the last year or so I have watched with keen interest as she has turned her skill and talent into a very successful business.  Her product range is always changing and expanding, so it is a good idea to check out her website regularly.

My Friday Review is about particular favourites of mine: her knitted people, all in uniform.  Apart from making great toys for children, they are also lovely keepsakes for people in the professions Dawn has represented in her creations.

This particular gentleman is a Paramedic - a profession close to Dawn's heart

How about these three?  I love the attention to detail: buttons, tie, helmet badge, the nurses fob watch.  My favourite is the fireman - apart from a man in uniform always being attractive, I love his hat.  

In addition to making items for sale, Dawn also runs several knitting groups in the Godalming area and you can find out more about them on the Knitting Groups Information tab on her website, where you can also see more photographs of her hand-knitted items as well as her cards.

I know that Dawn will have some of her people and possibly more at the next Godalming Bazaar, which is on 6 September in the Godalming Borough Hall.  Come along and have a look at her work and I am sure you will find it very hard not to ask her to make one of Knitted People for you.

Come back next Friday to see who is under the Friday Review spotlight.

Jill

OH BLOG POST, BLOG POST, WHEREFORE ART THOU BLOG POST

Hello everyone

When I began my blog, I promised myself I would blog regularly - at least once a week.  This was a promise I kept for a long, long time and then everything went to pot!  As we all know, life has a bad habit of getting in the way of plans.  I am sorry everyone for not keeping you up-to-date with what I am doing and more important, not keeping up-to-date with what you have been doing.  I will try to return to my regularly blogging ways and hopefully this post will update everyone with what has been happening in Christmas Pie land.

My 'makes' have been in the pottery section - not items for sale, but for fun.  I have been concentrating on my 'hat people'.  You may recall that a long time ago, I made a 'hat man' who now sports a very glossy black hat.  Along the same lines as Hat Man, I now have Hat Woman; she has a large brimmed hat, also shiny black and this has a red flower attached to the hat.  Her lips didn't quite turn out colour-wise as I had hoped and I will be painting them a nice bright shiny red.  The photographs are Hat Man first, followed by Hat Woman:

I am currently working on another Hat Lady - this one has a very wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. Unfortunately, I have problems making lips (as you can see from these offerings) and a fellow pottery student said Wide-Brimmed Hat Lady looked a lot like Mick Jagger - I may have to re-name her to him.

In addition to pottery, I have been working hard on organising the events now re-named Godalming Bazaar.  So much of what is needed to set up events takes place behind the scenes and of course, as those of you who have organised events or taken part in them knows, there is always so much more that could be and should be done to make them go with a bang.  For the June event, I and most of the stallholders taking part handed out flyers, posted posters and encouraged everyone they knew to come along to the event.

Adverts were placed in local publications (one delivered to 23,000 homes in the Godalming area), online and we had a mention in the What's On section of The Guide to Guildford.  I even had t-shirts printed with the Godalming Bazaar information emblazoned on the front and back - here is a picture of one of our stallholding promoters (Dawn of Stonepit Crafts) wearing her Bazaar outfit.  Dawn and two other t-shirt wearers went out and about into the Saturday shopping crowds to promote the event on the day.  One big disappointment was that despite being advised that delivery of one of the magazines I had advertised in would take place prior to the event to 23,000 homes, I found out last week that it did not take place until after the event.  Such a waste of a lot of money.  A very expensive lesson learned.

The event wasn't as well attended as I had hoped, it wasn't helped by clashing with the Godalming Town Show that took place on the same day.  However, as the procession went past our 'front door' I had hoped we would be able to welcome some passers-by in before they went off to the field for other events.  I had hoped to work with the Town Show organisers, but they wanted a contribution of £150 for the privilege of a couple of shout-outs over the tannoy on the day- cone on, Town Show Organisers, I am a small-business person!  My next event is in September, so plenty of time to come up with a miracle or two - any ideas anyone on how to get more people through the door?

I have booked a different venue for a Christmas event: Fairlands Community Hall.  The event is taking place on Saturday, 13 December and will run from 10.30 am - 4.30 pm.  I am hopeful that this venue will be a successful one, but I know that it takes hard work to get people through the doors and then more hard work from the stallholders to get them to spend.

A visitor to the event, also our 'official photographer' has written a great post from a customer's point of view.  Once I have published it I will add a link on here - it makes very interesting reading and carries lots of valid points both for stallholders and organisers. (me, specifically)

I bought myself a Cricut Explore recently and am looking forward to getting back to card-making and bag decorating - so watch this space for me getting back to 'normal' or trying to.

Have a great week everyone - don't forget to come back for the guest blog post about the Godalming Bazaar event and of course it almost goes without saying, pop over to Handmade Monday to see how everyone is getting on.

Jill