T
he Morningside Makers Market is a monthly affair that takes place at the Columcille Centre in Edinburgh on the first Saturday of every month and accommodates around 30 stalls each featuring arts and crafts made by-and-large by the stall holders themselves, this in itself is a huge attraction, all the crafts for sale are created locally by the people who are selling them … so no imported crafts from the far east or elsewhere.
This was actually our first fair of the year, following the cancellation (through no fault of our own) of the events that were meant to precede this one. The fact that we had a couple of fairs cancelled actually knocked our motivation quite badly, really taking the wind out of our sails, so it was good to finally get out to an event and speak with other stall holders and those passing through.
To be honest though we were fairly disappointed with the day, there were long periods when it was very quiet punctuated by spells when you would be forgiven for believing that people were arriving by the coach load. In terms of takings it was probably the worst event we’ve had although from speaking to and watching other stallholders I don’t think we were the only ones and it seems from those who have attended regularly that the day was exceptionally and unusually quiet … I guess we just aren’t having any luck this year!
On the upside we met some really enthusiastic people, stallholders and customers alike, which made all the difference in terms of how we viewed the day and I think we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s an event we’ll maybe seek to attend on a more regular basis in the future, we’re back there in October anyway so we’ll hopefully get a better idea following that event and look to book up for 2011.
If we’ve taken away anything from this fair it was what people were interested in, the fabric finches proved popular, as did the plant pokes and the sock creatures, but I think we were both surprised to find that the most popular item by far was the hand-bound photo notebooks. Jolene originally made these on a whim to use up some spare photo’s and yet people seemed to be fascinated by them and our limited stock was quickly depleted, later we’ll be poring over our photo collection to see which others might make nice little notebook covers!
I had hoped to get some pictures from the event to share with you but Jolene’s new camera (a long service award from her work) wasn’t really up to the job and there’s only really the one worth sharing, ho-hum, such is life!
Tags: craft, fair, fayre, Morningside Makers Market
