Sling bags and shoulder bags

Folks,

It's Friday! I worked really hard this week. Not so much on my bags but on cleaning. We spent some serious money on new beds for the kids and this meant I had to do a lot of cleaning and throwing away of junk. A lot of the stuff went to recycling. My neighbour saw the work-in-progress and asked me if we were moving! We have serious junk! If I were smarter I would have arranged for the beds to arrive after my craft market. But I never ever think ahead. So that meant I had to "sacrifice" a couple of my sewing days. My body was achy breaky afterwards and for one whole day I walked very stiffly. Of course the entire day I thought I would walk that way for the rest of my life. Ha ha ha ha. Why am I like that?

I have 4 more bags to show you. 2 are sling bags, 1 is a adjustable length bag and the last one is a shoulder bag.

Do you prefer shoulder bags or sling bags? I am personally a shoulder bag kind of gal. My everyday bag has to be a shoulder bag. If I am going shopping, the shoulder bag would have to be huge. But I use sling bags as well. It would very much depend on the clothes I'm wearing. Which brings up the next question. Do you try to match your bags to your clothes? I have some customers who would only buy bags which are beigy in colour because they believe they're easier to match.

This bag I did not do much planning but just went with the flow. When it came time to put in the handle, I discovered I have a small amount of pink strap and I thought it really matched the fabric. Some women might hate the pink strap though...

This black and grey diamond print bag is a slightly smaller version of the pink strap one. Originally I wanted it to be a shoulder bag but doesn't it just scream for an adjustable strap?

I had some of these Ikea fabric still unused and you really can't go wrong with this fabric. Very bright and cheerful.

Once I was at Ikea early this year and saw the same fabric plastered on a wall. I feel this fabric needs to come in small doses.

This scooter bag was completed this afternoon. It's a shoulder bag. I tried to give this bag enough room to hold the customer's barang-barang (things).

This weekend I'm off to Vivocity, Singapore to hawk my wares. Hopefully the haze will stay away (what great sunny weather today and what a waste!). Have a good weekend and if you're in Singapore, swing by Vivocity. We're near Traveller World and Sephora, level one.

Serious drawstring bags

Hi friends,

What a weird past few days for Singapore. First we had the haze. Then we had a hailstorm yesterday. It's pretty unusual for Singapore to get any hail from the sky. Today we had another thunderstorm. When it rains... Speaking of the haze, I still haven't managed to buy my N95 masks and the experts have predicted the haze will return.

I have another craft market at VivoCity coming up this weekend and I haven't really been sewing as much as I would have wanted. How could I, rite? What with the haze and all.

I made a few drawstring bags. Unlike the drawstring bags I made in the past, these are serious drawstring bags.

Um, how serious?

At my craft market, from time to time I have spotted women trying to stuff their umbrella into my pouches. No, they're not being funny. They just want to see if their umbrella fits. With that in mind, I made this batch of drawstring bags to fit umbrellas.

See, in Singapore, it rains very often. (except last week) Most women have an umbrella in their bags. I own many umbrellas. Umbrellas don't last very long as most are quite badly made. I have them in different sizes. I prefer the longer ones as the tiny ones barely cover my body. When it comes to buying umbrellas, I've come to realize the cheaper they are, the lousier the quality. Once hubs bought a $2 umbrella and it broke the first time he used it. Of course he had to learn the mistake himself.

This was the first drawstring bag I made. I made the "mistake" of thinking I needed the umbrella to stand in the bag. That is why this bag is a little taller. Of course gravity wins and I sheepishly realize it's a lot easier to make the umbrella lie horizontally. On account of that, this newspaper print drawstring bag fits my smallest umbrella.

This is the second drawstring bag I made. Isn't the print cheerful?

This drawstring bag with the hula hula girls was constrained by the amount of fabric I had. I was really pleased it could fit my largest umbrella.

Here it is hung.

Then I got ambitious. I wanted to get rid of more scraps and quilted up a storm.

This one's the largest. You could use it as a shoulder bag. (if you don't have mansize arms)

This is the other view of the patchwork drawstring bag.

That's all I have. Vivocity here I come!

Partay: Sew Many Ways

Dear Brad Pitt

Dear Brad Pitt,

(World War Z spoiler alert!)

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I hope you have recovered after saving the world from Zombies. I think you sustained 10 cuts on your face not forgetting that nasty piece of airplane that got lodged in your stomach. Considering all that you went through, you're pretty lucky. Your Israeli pal lost her hand, thanks (or no thanks) to you.

Anyhoos, if you're not too busy, could you swing by Singapore? Like today or latest tomorrow? You probably heard about the Great Singapore HaZe. Well, read my blog post here if you haven't. The HaZe situation has gotten slightly better for us since Saturday. Yeah, the wind changed direction. The authorities however warned that the haze is expected to persist despite the clearer skies outside our windows. Yes, I suppose the wind could change direction again.

You're probably wondering "why me?" See, you have all these experience as a UN investigator and you successfully batted the Zees. In Singapore we call them Zeds. Well, potato, tomato. HaZe should be a piece of cake.

No? Let's see. We could kick your family off the ship. Hmm... wait you own the ship.

Tell you what. If you agree to come, everyone in Singapore will go see every single movie you make from now on. (no matter how bad) Especially the ones you also produce. There are over 5 million people in Singapore.

We have a deal!

Now here's the plan. You come in your UN airplane which will airlift my family to Nova Scotia after you have landed. (I don't have a valid passport. Hope that's not a problem) Next, our people here will send you by helicopter to Sumatra. Your job is to find Fire Zero. Why, you might ask? Finding Fire Zero is essential because we need to know the buggers who burned their land. Without finding out who, the authorities cannot prosecute them to stop future fires. All the companies named as the fire starters have denied doing it. Zero burning is their policy.

We didn't start the fire.

Oh, there are likely to be many, many Fire Zeroes. Remember nature leaves crumbs. Find those crumbs. Oh, before I forget, bring your own N95 mask. I couldn't get any N95 masks despite going to 3 pharmacies. They did offer me the useless 3 ply surgical masks which they limit to 10 pieces per customer.

Oh, we won't let you go into the fire alone. We give you our own doctor - Dr Vivian. He has experience in Indonesia. Why, just a few days ago, he went to Indonesia to hand deliver a letter from our PM. I'm not sure if the letter was handwritten or laser printed. Listen. We're going to give him a gun too. Just make sure upon landing in Sumatra, he doesn't trip and shoot himself.

After you're all done with Sumatra, please hop by Singapore again. See, we're not just in the middle of a air crisis. We have a problem with the aedes mosquitoes too. Have you heard of them? These moZZies carry a virus which can be lethal to people. They're kinda like the zombies you battled. They spread the virus through their bites except they fly and are very small. And since they're in the Zees (or Zeds) family...

I know it's a lot to ask but you've already done it once. All you got to do is inject yourself with a virus of your choice, something non-lethal and of course curable but not wimpy either.  After that, let's count to 30, shall we? Then proceed to lock yourself in a room filled with aedes mosquitoes. If the mosquitoes bypass you "like a river around a rock", we'll know that mozzies don't attack unhealthy prey. This will buy us time for WHO to develop a vaccine against dengue fever. At this point you're probably asking why don't we get our locals to volunteer? Well, you fell from a plane and managed to land with your seat belt still securely belted on and lived to save the world. No one is as lucky as you. You're the guy.

Thank you.

Singapore calling the rain gods

Dear Internet friends,

How are you guys? I know most of my readers aren't from Singapore so you probably don't know this. Singapore is in a environmental crisis. Now. In layman terms, our air is filled with shit and we are breathing it in. Every single second.

via

Every year during the dry season typically from June to September, Singapore gets covered by smog, a result of our neighbour, Indonesia burning her land in preparation for the next sowing season. For decades, this has been happening. The fires are not accidental but deliberate. The fires are also "illegal" but they continue to occur year after year.

Back in 1997, we had the "worst" haze situation when the PSI hit 226. The PSI measures the air quality in the air - the more shit, the higher the number.

PSI Value Air Quality Descriptor 
0 - 50 Good
51 - 100 Moderate
101 - 200 Unhealthy
201 - 300 Very unhealthy
Above 300 Hazardous

This table above gives you an idea what the number means. So in 1997, when the haze was at its worst, the PSI was 226 which is only "very unhealthy".

On Wednesday night when the PSI hit 290 at 9pm, jumping 100 points from the previous reading, I could feel that everyone on social media felt like the world was ending. 290! That's just 10 points away from hazardous. I mean once it crossed 300, we were all gonna die for sure. Right? I mean, what the hell does hazardous mean in layman terms? Well, we all kind of found out at 11pm for the 10pm reading. (the server crashed) It was 321. For the first time in history, our air quality was above 300. The end of Singapore.

Oh well, we all went to bed and yes, we're all still alive. Bad air or not, we're still alive. Cough, cough.

The PSI has since hit other highs. Like 401 at noon today. (I was sleeping, trapped in a dream where I took the wrong bus)

So what next?
The strategy is to keep healthy, stay indoors and be positive. And not panic.
Which I kinda did today.

I went out in search of N95 face masks after reading a report that the government has 9 million of these babies in its armoury. Good lord. We never even know the government has a armoury. The newspaper report says the ministry of health will release new stock to the pharmacies. Guess what? It's out of stock at all the places I went to. I only have dust masks at the moment which are practically useless but I figure they're better than nothing. I'm positive new stock will come in soon (because the government doesn't lie) so I shan't panic.

You know, living here it's easy to forget how tiny Singapore is. All it takes is a number of fires to cripple us. We are at the mercy of the Indonesian government. If they do nothing about the fires, there's nothing much we can do. Just wait it out. Wish the people in charge will stop pussy footing around!

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Whenever there is diplomatic tension, dumb words are bound to be said. These came from Agung Laksono, the minister who is coordinating Indonesia's response to the haze crisis.

"Singapore should not be behaving like a child and making all this noise."

"Unless (Singapore) wants to give us a large amount, we won't consider accepting it. If it is only half a million, or one million dollars, we don't need that. We would rather use our own national budget."

I hope he's referring to one million rupiah and not one million Sing dollars!

With this kind of attitude, only rain can help us.

So my dear friends. Do you have any super rain summoning powers? Pray for rain for Singapore. Not the wimpy kind. We need like 3-4 days of heavy downpour, at least!

Zip pouches to pay the rent

Folks,

From time to time I title my post, something-something to pay the rent. You do know that I am not living in poverty and need to sew stuff to pay the rent for my home. Right? Right? In the first place, we don't pay rent. We pay a mortgage and it comes out of hub's Central Provident Funds. The rent my sewing stuff pays for is the rent for my booth at Vivocity craft market. 

I have another craft market coming up on 29th and 30th of June. I made 10 zip pouches which I hope will sell out totally and the money will fund the rent.

I have not made this size for a long time. In the past these zip pouches were a regular item. So much that people would come to my booth and ask me for the rectangular size I used to make. And they would use their hands and fingers to show me the size.

This size (8.5" long and 5" tall)  is good for stationery. Some women use it to keep their wallets or personal stuff.

I spent quite a bit of time going through my stash choosing fabric, zippers and lining. And I won't say I whipped these zip pouches out because if you've sewn a zip pouch before you'll know there's no whipping. Just good ol' accuracy in pinning and sewing. And lots of ironing. I used a softer interfacing this time. I'm quite over stiff interfacing for the moment. The soft interfacing feels like fabric.

For this batch of zip pouches, I'm selling them without handles so they can't be used as wristlets. Reasons being wristlets are harder to sell as they are priced higher and the other reason is I have almost run out of lobster swivel clasps which are needed for the handles. I usually buy these clasps in 100 pieces so I'll need to make a supply run soon but it's so so so bloody hot. I feel baked whenever I leave my home so there won't be any supply run until it rains. Even in my home with ceiling fans all over (7 in total), I feel like I am drained of my energy just sitting still. Once I made the mistake of closing the windows and doors before we went out the whole day to keep out the insects. When we returned, my home felt like an oven. I could feel myself slightly fainting, losing my balance.   

Where was I?

Yes, I have instead used cute cotton tape which are decorative so I hope none of my customers will attach a handle to them. Check out the first tape with the bobbin on a measuring tape. I could just die.

These five are my favourite. The two flower-flower ones I'm finding very hard to part with.

I devote next week to making stuff for my next craft market. I pray for rain.

Partay: Sew Many Ways

I made a doll!

Many years ago, like a hundred years ago when I was still working in an office, I boasted to a few colleagues that I would make a doll during my maternity leave. I was pregnant with my son then. He turned 16 last month.

My then colleagues did not believe that I would be able to make a doll. In fact they laughed about it. What a ridiculous idea.

I had bought 2 books on doll making and to show them how serious I was, I brought them to work. You know, to prove that I wasn't all talk. I had 2 books to teach me.

Haha.

I ended up having two kids, made clothes for Barbies, made more than a thousand bags. But no dolls. Yes, there were a few softie rabbits made during my MAAD days. I  used to include them in my bags as a freebie. But rabbits aren't dolls.

Anyway, I finally made a doll. A real cloth doll with a head, arms and legs.

Meet Miss Red Riding Hood. Made of fabric and a felt face.

I made it based on this doll. I know I'm not entirely 100% accurate. Let's just say there were a few cutting accidents. I took the liberty of excluding the mouth as my practice mouth looked creepy.

Red Riding Hood is a doll found in this book - We Make Dolls.

Thing is my doll doesn't stand. Not at all. See I have to use the drawer to catch one arm or she would surely slide down. In the book, the doll seems to have the ability to stand and bend the knees. I can't figure out how it's possible.

As expected, Bear is quite hostile to the newcomer. Melly is happy to have a girl doll to play with.

p.s. did you notice that Red stole Bear's scarf because it matched her body and Bear stole Melly's scarf because he felt bare without a scarf.

Partay: Sew Many Ways

Friday Ketchup No. 7

Internet friends,

Have you heard? Singapore is in the midst of a dengue epidemic. It is because it's the hot season and the aedes mosquitoes which carry the dengue virus thrive in such weather. I have almost forgotten how hot Singapore is as it has been raining a lot for the past year.

On June 8, the total number of infections for 2013 stand at 9,303. The worst dengue outbreak was in 2005 when 14,000 people were infected and 25 people died. This year alone, 2 persons have died from dengue fever. Looks like this year, the total number of infection will likely surpass 14,000 as the hot season is just beginning.

Despite the many, many efforts by the government agencies and volunteers and residents, the number of cases keep increasing. I wonder if we are all doing it wrong. Otherwise it doesn't make sense.

In the past I never really worried about being bitten by the aedes mosquitoes because the infections were not where I live. This year, the mosquitoes seemed to have been able to fly all the way to my town in the north-west. My area is a red cluster. It means we have the aedes mosquitoes in our area. Mayday! Mayday! This means I could be bitten any day. Any day!

I know it may sound silly to be afraid of mosquitoes but dengue fever is no joke. The symptoms are extremely painful - high fever, joint and muscle pain, pain in the eye, nausea, vomiting, body rash and bleeding. There is no cure but the symptoms can be treated and managed. In other words, you just got to ride it out, if it doesn't kill you.

I read in the papers that the government is giving every household a mosquito repellent. I don't know what kind of special repellent it is but I have armed my home with in my opinion, a state of the art mosquito repellent.

 

Meet my Pest-stop. It gives out a sound which mosquitoes, as well as other insects find uncomfortable. The sound does not kill them but causes them to have a nervous breakdown and this will hopefully keep them away from my flat. It did not work right away. But after a few days, I noticed that we no longer get mosquitoes. Before I bought the Pest-stop, we did get a few mosquitoes but not the aedes kind. Yes, every time I kill a mosquito, I examine the legs for white spots as that's how you know it's an aedes. The Pest-stop don't seem to work on sandflies which only attack my shins. No one else in my family gets them.

When I was at the shop looking for suitable repellents, I wanted to buy a device that kills the mosquitoes. It uses heat to simulate the human body and once the mosquitoes are close to the device, the fan traps them and they are somehow killed. The assistant at the shop advised me against buying the device for my home as I would be calling all the mosquitoes to my home. I took his advice.

I also have 2 cans of these essential oils which are supposed to repel mosquitoes. I place them below our computer tables.

This is a repellent band which you can wear around your wrist or your ankle. They give off a pretty strong smell. My girl's school is in the middle of the red cluster and I'm worried that when school reopens she will get bitten. My plan is to get her to wear the band around her ankle. I mean why take the risk and get bitten? I expect a huge resistant from her.

I really hope my family survive this epidemic.

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 And on top of everything else, the haze came for a visit. How much hotter can it get?

Killer toothpaste

Folks,

Those of you who are Chinese probably remember 12th June as the Dumpling Festival or some call it Dragon Boat Festival. Not me. I will forever remember 12th June 2013 as the day a toothpaste tried to kill me.

Before I get into the how? what? hah?, how did you celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival? I personally never think of it as the Dragon Boat Festival. For me, it has always been about eating meat dumplings which my mother used to make. She bitched a lot while making them so I often felt obliged to eat them. Thank goodness she stopped making them when she got older. My MIL still makes them but it's hubs' duty to eat them. Hahahaha.

Never seen meat dumplings? I stole a pic from one of my facebook friends (Alice). Just for you.

standard lunch/dinner at my MIL

Anyhoos, after a lunch at my MIL's, I suppose to celebrate the festival, (although no dumpling eating was involved), me and the kids headed home to do some serious cleaning. The kids washed the two bathrooms while I washed the laundry room and the kitchen. After that, I cooked dinner, cleaned the fridge, sewed something, cleaned the microwave oven and finally decided to call it a night. I know it sounds like a lot of stuff and I assure you we are rarely in this kind of cleaning mood.

I assume everyone brushes your teeth before bed and trust me when I say I won't judge if you don't (actually I do) and I saw that the toothpaste was almost run out and on account I'm dead tired, I decided to get a new tube.

I looked up the shelf above my head and saw a box of toothpaste perched on top of a roll of toilet paper. I reached out to get it and the minute my hand touched the box, a tube of toothpaste slid out of the box and whacked me on my head. It hit me with such force that I screamed with pain. It was like someone had hit me with a rock as big as a watermelon. My girl came running and handed me a icepack. I kept on screaming. I felt as if my head had shattered. Eventually I calmed down enough to yes, brush my teeth and then went to bed.

What really worried me about being whacked on the head was that when I was 21, I was whacked on the right side of my head by someone holding a weight in the gym and I went deaf in my right ear. I know it sounds ridiculous but that's what happened to me and since then every time I got whacked in the head I would go crazy with fear.

The next day I told hubs about the killer toothpaste and you know what he said? He had just a day or two ago looked at the box of toothpaste and wondered if it was empty. He reached out to check and when he saw there was a tube of toothpaste inside the box, he decided to let it be. But he did consider moving the box to another location as he wondered if it would fall and hit Jane on her head. Well, he thought about it for a minute and decided I was TOO TALL for the toothpaste to injure.

Something else puzzled me. So I asked him why he put the toothpaste on top of the roll of toilet paper and not on the shelf which is less likely to fall like an asteroid on his wife's head, he said he wanted it to be visible. Which don't make sense as his VERY TALL wife would have no problem seeing it in the first place.

I seriously need to grow taller. And yes, my head still hurts.

The next time the taxi driver says "I blacked out..."

Yesterday I woke up at 5:30am to accompany hubs to his very first National Vertical Marathon. I repeat. 5:30 AM. On a Sunday morning. The next time hubs asks me: "what do you do for me?", I shall remind him I woke up at 5:30am for him. Does your husband frequently ask you what you do for him? Mine does. So it's very important to keep score.

I fear some of you might not know what a vertical marathon. If you live in a village, you'll instantly think, shimmer up a coconut tree? Am I right? I live in Singapore. So a vertical marathon really means a bunch of people running up the stairs. Up 40 storeys. I did not sign up because I have an issue with stairs. Don't like to climb them.

We took a taxi because the trains weren't running yet. We told the driver to take us to Asia Square which was somewhere near Shenton Way. If you're not familiar with Singapore, Shenton Way is a very well-known business district in Singapore. Every taxi driver in Singapore has to know where it is. Except our taxi driver.

He confessed that when he heard us say "Shenton Way", he had a blackout.

Did you hear that? Our taxi driver said he had a blackout and we carried on sitting in his taxi and allowed him to drive us to a destination he had no idea how to get to. Hubs helped him out a little with google maps and the driver also secretly used his phone to look at the map as well. Which was not a good idea because sometimes he did not pay attention to the road and I really feared we would die. We were lucky there wasn't much traffic. Somehow google maps brought us close enough to the building and we were so relieved to flee the taxi. After we got out, two guys got into our taxi and I tried to remember their faces because I wanted to check the newspapers the next day for taxi accident victims.

This is Asia Square. We couldn't get a pic of the whole building because to do so we would have to cross the road (it was raining) and even so we still couldn't capture the entire building. It was huge.

Hubs trying to gauge how high 40 storeys is.

I vote vertical marathon the most boring spectator sport IN THE WORLD. First it's just a bunch of people queuing up for your turn. I mean, you can't all run together.

Then they run up the stairs, WHICH YOU CAN'T SEE.

Ten minutes later, they take the lift down. It's over.

Vivocity craft market 1st to 2nd June 2013 Post-mortem

Hello,

I spent the first 2 days of June hawking my wares at Vivocity. First of all, I want to bitch how hard it was to book a taxi on Saturday. Apparently I did not get the memo that it was the first day of school holidays and somehow that meant taxi drivers weren't taking booking. It doesn't make sense to me! I spent 45 minutes on the phone and I tried different taxi numbers and nothing. Finally I decided I had better take my chances on the road. Worst case scenario: take the train with all my luggage.

Of  course I had no luck trying to hail a taxi standing by the road. Worse still, a family cut my queue and stood a short distance in front of me. That meant I could only get a taxi if they got a taxi first. Much to my surprise, this taxi with "on call" displayed stopped beside me. The driver rolled down the window and told me to "pretend I had booked his taxi", wink, wink. I was puzzled and grateful at the same time. After we had loaded our luggage and got into the taxi, the driver realised I wasn't heading for the airport. That's when he told me he had stopped for me because he saw my luggage. Anyway, he wasn't mad or anything and happily took me to Vivocity. He said most taxi drivers were heading for the airport and he wasn't surprised I couldn't get a taxi. I guess I should avoid taking the taxi during the June school holidays.

The driver talked a lot during the journey and he had the habit of sharing stuff with me.
Such as:
• photos of himself on his phone
• his wife's photo
• his wife's online website (after learning I'm in the handmade trade)
• nuggets like he had been married 3 times - to 3 different nationalities
• he lived in his taxi - ew!
• did I know there are many places in Singapore where one could take a nice shower?

The driver also had the habit of correcting the bad driving habits of fellow drivers on the road. And there were so many bad drivers. He would shout, honk and gesture at the offending drivers. I really feared that we would get rammed and I would die and what would happen to my bags in the boot? Yep, I worried about my bags when I were on the verge of dying.

We survived the "interesting" taxi ride and I hope never to run into him again. I think once is quite enough. He is a really good driver though.

Where was I? Yes, back to the craft market. This was my table display on Saturday. I had more or less the same display on both days. Sales was tough. When is it ever easy? This time I had a lot of competition. There were 2 other booths selling fabric bags. When I showed up on Saturday and saw the 2 other booths, I really thought I should just pack up and go home. Much to my surprise, my total sales was a little higher than before. Once again, most of my sales were made on Saturday. I didn't manage to sell all my new stuff. A little disappointing but I do have a few more market dates lined up.

My little hipster girl helped me out for the whole of Saturday. I know it was tiring and boring for her and was really grateful for her company. Nothing much happened during the 2 days. Just a lot of time killing.

Okay, maybe I have one little story to tell.

Do you remember this polka dot sling bag I made for my Easy sling bag pattern? I had another similar one for sale but that one had a patchwork flap. Anyway, my girl sold the sling bag with the patchwork pouch. Maybe a minute later, this lady showed up and asked me what had happened to the bag with the patchwork flap. She was really disappointed it was sold but decided she liked the polka dot sling bag as well. However, she was quite uncertain about her choice and asked me if she could take the bag to show her friend/colleague in a shop nearby. I forgot where she told me her shop was but I told her to go ahead. What's wrong with me, right? I'm so trusting. Anyway, she did return but told me she wasn't buying the bag because her friend/colleague said it was ugly.

Wait. That's not her friend's/colleague's exact words. Her exact words were:

VERY UGLY

That's right. Not just ugly. But very ugly. So she couldn't buy the bag even though she admitted she liked the bag enough. What would we do without peer pressure?

I do admit the background blue of the sling bag is not a common colour. And it is not everyone's cup of tea. But I don't find it ugly. My girl asked me for the bag and that's quite a compliment because she rarely likes anything I make.

Some time later, I "caught" the same lady back at my booth again, secretly feeling up my bags. Finally she left without buying anything.

I notice that usually when a customer comes to my booth and she needs someone else to validate her choice, chances of a sale dives.

Like if a couple comes and the woman holds up the bag she likes for her boyfriend/husband to see and who's usually standing a short distance away, very uninterested?

(usually they mouth the words because they don't want me to hear)
Woman: this one?
Man: No.
Woman: <pouts>
Woman: what about this one? love it.
Man: how much?
Woman: $$
Man: so much! no.
Woman: <pouts>
Woman: okay, what about this one?
Man: N. O. no.

Finally, woman gets tired and leaves.

Sometimes women come in twos. The interested buyer touches a bag, looks at her friend. Her friend shakes her head. Interested buyer touches another bag and looks at friend. Friend shakes head hard. Both women leave.

The women who buy from me usually know exactly what they want. They're very sure of their own taste. Haha. Needless to say, my favourite kind of women.

Oh, my polka dot sling bag story has a happy ending. On Sunday, right after I opened for business, I sold it to a European looking teenager who came with her mom. I couldn't tell what language they were speaking. Now she knew exactly what she wanted! And isn't it interesting that she looked about my girl's age. Same taste.

To be honest with you, when I buy clothes, I usually ask for hubs opinion because, well, and I hate to say this because he'll gloat, he does have good taste. However, when it comes to bags, I trust myself to make a good choice.

On Sunday, I was looking at my pathetic stock and then I looked at the other two booths selling fabric bags and they seem to have unending stock. Which left me feeling depressed. How do they do it? I seriously need to work my butt off if I want to survive the next 3 craft market dates.

These are my next 3 market dates. They will arrive sooner than you think!

29th & 30th June 2013
6th & 7th July 2013
27th & 28th July 2013

I'm taking 2 days off and then I pinky promise to sew like a maniac.