12th Night 2011 success!!

It was awesome. Really excellent. I had tons of stock - lots of colors, sizes and styles. I think that the display worked really well - better than any other time, actually. It was super minimalistic (four boxes and two shelves on a regular 8 foot banquet table could hold 30 felt hats.

The two upright spinning racks held 30 more, and my little corner of bookshelves held all the extra feathers, sewing supplies, etc that I could need. Also hid the ugly stuff like plastic lunch containers, seen in my lap in the image below:

I was so tickled that I actually made myself a hat that went with my dress, and din't sell it! That may be another first! I had told Tim that I felt guilty making myself a hat when I could have made more stock, but it seems that my worry there was as stupid as it sounded to him. I got tons of joy out of looking all put-together.

 My merchanting neighbor Ken (Cloaked in Time) was just delightful, and I saw ZERO merchanting drama amongst the others. Not always the case - and a total win.

Sales-wise I sold 26 of the 64 hats that I brought (that counts linen coifs as whole entire hats. I sold two of those, but as I only took four and dumped my coffee all over the last one, rendering it unsellable till it is bleached and re-starched, that ain't bad, folks.) 26 hats sold is a fabulous number, and is more than I sold last year. I saw LOTS of last year's hats on happy heads, and saw several people who had made their hats whole entire outfits!! (That really warms my heart). Also had several folks rush the table right at the first and buy two hats at a time - saying "last year MY hat sold to someone else before I could buy it. I'm not letting that happen again."

THAT is why I do this, folks.

The blue cocky beaver hat was the hot item du-jour-of-the-day. There were three or four ladies oggling it - one of whom bought it instantly. The rest of the ladies hissed at her for the rest of the event, and she has joked about needing hatyguards to follow her around to protect her (it). I had no idea that would be such a hot ticket item. Tim says he knew (smarty pants.) Perhaps one or two higher priced "over the top" pieces would be in order for whenever next time is.

My prices were a little bit higher than last year, which is really good because I had just run last years numbers and the hat business has not remotely even paid for itself in 2010. Hopefully the small increase will help.

All custom ordered deliveries went well, and everyone who I sent away with a hat to go get their checkbook or to paypal me from their hotel room, did so - keeping the happy 100% track record of "Nobody has Ever Not Paid me." I will need to cash all checks soon to see if the "Ive never gotten a bad check" track record stays awesome as well, but I think all will be fine.

So - there are lots and lots of pretty hats left, to be photographed and put on the actual online store page.
I think some of the Cavalier hats would have sold if they had been just a little bigger, but my bigger block was busy with Thore's custom hat collection, and was therefore unavailable. They are all really pretty - they will sell, I think. Thy just need their people to find them.

stuff I should have brought:

• More blue hats. I'm totally out of blue blanks right now, so this is a resupply issue
• More hats trimmed in forest green or in blue. I had olive green, which is not what folks were wearing. It's always something.
• More Mary Stewart hoods. I think...I think they have started to catch on. I really must get the paper all done, and maybe get working on the kit I hope to have.
• Hat blanks - to use to show people how the hats start off. Some folks think that I buy the hats and just decorate them (I am awesome-er than that) and others think that I make my own felt. (I am not that awesome)
• Felt swatches for custom cav hat orders. I was very blonde to leave these at home. Fortunately, Melusine understood. :)
• Really need a custom order form. Must make that this year.

Glad I didn't bring feathers to sell. Two other merchants had them, and it's better not to duplicate.

And - that's enough for now.  I also could have used a full-timeish hatshop helper. Tim did some for me, but he was watching Zach, and I need someone I can dress up in Elizabethan stuff and put a hat on. Viking boy was less convincing than he would have been in a nice doublet and a ruff.

Ruffs! Yes - the ruffs were an excellent first experiment. The huge goldwork De Medici ruff sold, making the Renaissance Tailor a very happy Marquesa. We also figured out that we should have only put ONE ruff on a display form, and just place the rest on the table ready to be tried on. I think more might have sold if folks had been easily able to try them on without feeling like there were dissassembling my hat display. Hopefully, we'll do that experiment again.

Right - really done this time.

12th Night 2011...tomorrow!!

Hello hat lovers.

here are some quick, terrible photos of what is going to be for sale at An Tir 12th Night, which is tomorrow. (Aaaaargh!!!)

There are 28 here:

There are two more felt hats on top of these racks, and six Cavalier hats on the top rungs.
There will be 24 finished flatcaps, many of which are shown here, and the last four will be finished in the car tomorrow. (bringing the total to 24, which perfectly fills the racks. I am very pleased. I've even got SIZE labels in them all this time.)

 Here are the four custom ordered Cavalier hats all finished and boxed up and ready for their new homes. I really should have gotten photos of some of these, but chose to make more hats instead.

 Here  is the bag of 1000 custom labels!! I thought they were too big when they arrived, but they have grown on me. They didn't make it into all the hats, but I can work on that during slow booth times.

New for 12th Night!: I actually have finally, after many many false starts and frustrated sourcing, made some jewelled hatpins which I like and which are functional! Finally found really strong hatpin blanks, and got the half-drilled beads I needed for the ends. I think they will be $10 each.

 closeup of one. I need a new camera.

I have not packed or ironed my clothes, or my husband's clothes, or my child's clothes,  and haven't printed a price sheet or loaded the trailer, etc .....but hey,  I've got a total of (does quick math...) 64 hats for my booth!!! That is about 14 more than I've ever hat at one time!

Now - just need to GET them there and all set up.

Showtime!

Preparing for 12th night!

Ok - I've been the busiest hatmaker I know. Here's a random brain-dump of various prep for my merchant booth at 12th Night.

First of all, I've learned a valuable Merchanting lesson: Book as much space as humanly possible, and do not assume that the MerchantCrat has any idea at all that no everything can be easily sold from behind a single table.  I booked an 8' space, assuming (again- my bad) that it would be like last year - an 8X8' space. It seems that instead, I have in fact reserved a single 8' table, and that's it.  Harumph. Ok - time to make lemonade. I've totally redesigned my selling concept, and have figured out how to get the 60 hats (largest number ever!) I hope to have ready, all on an 8" table and two elevated spinning racks.

Oh! Spinning racks of coolness!

Pleeze to be oohing and ahhing over my birfday prezzie:

Looks AWESOME, no? It holds 15 hats, which looks like it will be 12 flatcaps and three cav hats on the top rung. I LOVE the way it looks, and have figured out how to scrunch it into my table space, so will be ordering a second one for the rest of the flatcaps and cav hats. I'll have to hand them over the table, which isn't the way I've worked before, but hey, it's not the end of the world.

Anyway - ain't the rack awesome?

Also for my birthday, I got a beautiful box of Styrofoam heads. (yeah - I know. It's what I wanted :)

Aware that Styrofoam heads are not as classy looking as they might be, I spent some time this weekend covering a couple of them and padding the necks up to a reasonable size so that they will be able to wear some of the Renaissance Tailor's Bee-oo-tee-ful ruffs. Now, every other attempt I've seen to cover styro heads with fabric has resulted in something that reeks of bodies in a bag, so my expectations were low. I'm way more impressed with the results than I thought I'd be:

They also keep with the theme of "black store fixtures", so I'm extra pleased.

All in all - here's 80% of what's going to be for sale at 12th night:

And...AND! I and some real progress on my new French hoods that I've been going on about in previous posts. Here's the black linen coif - made just like all my white ones, but, you know, black:

and here is the actual "Hood" part, with billament strip and veil attached. (It's part of my new theory on these.)

I kinda threw my hair together alast night and tried it on, but I had respirator marks on my face, so you don't get any pictures of that. I need to adjust the braid placement a little, but it totally worked! I don't know if I'll have any of these in the shop this time, but it is really exciting and rare to come up with new projects that require Research and Development. That kind of time is really precious, so I'm thrilled to have made some progress.

Other than that - Got the white custom ordered Cav hat started, and it's in the shop drying - with a sign on it that says "Don't touch me till you wash your hands!!!" I've found the perfect blue trim, and have fabulous white feathers for it, and she'll be just gorgeous.

Also got WELL along with the Green custom ordered Cav hat. It's all wired and ready for the ribbon on the edge. I need to choose a hatband, but I've got a cornucopia of green feathers which I'm just salivating over. It's going to be a little non-standard, and totally made of awesome.

Found the best silver trim EVER for the purple one too. I've been saving it for something special, and this is definitely IT! Going to look ROYAL, that one.

OK - and that's entirely enough.