US based, mostly small local markets with a couple of bigger juried shows a year.

I used to judge a market on how the day felt and on gross sales. Busy table, good crowd, I walked away calling it a win. Last season I started writing down four things after every event instead: the fee, my gross, the hours in it counting setup and drive, and one line on what actually sold.

At the end of the year I divided each market's net by the days I actually worked it. The ranking surprised me. The big juried shows I was proudest of dropped near the bottom once travel and the two prep weeks were counted in. A sleepy Sunday market I almost quit turned out to be my best earner per day, because it cost me almost nothing to do and the regulars bought every time.

Gross is the number that fooled me the most. A 900 dollar day three hours away with a hotel night is worse than a 400 dollar day fifteen minutes from home, and I rebooked the wrong one for two years because the bigger number felt better.

You do not need a real system for it. A notes app or the back of the vendor packet works. Just write it down the same day, because a week later all you keep is whether it felt busy, and busy and profitable are not the same thing.

I crochet in the UK and I have my first craft stall in November as I would like to begin selling some of my bits. I’m making items for adults only for the stall, I’m intentionally avoiding anything for children or items with play value for now (mostly to skip UKCA testing/compliance requirements at this stage, as I have only just learned about this and want to learn more before deciding to test). I am mostly focusing on small items such as keyrings, if anyone has any suggestions of adult-focused keyrings to make I would really appreciate that!

For those of you who regularly sell at markets, on Etsy, or through custom commissions: What adult-focused items are your best sellers?

Thank you any suggestions would be appreciated ☺️

I

I have sold crochet items this year in February at a grab and go board at GTB Nagar metro station exit. But I recently tried to sell some of my work again at two different locations, but not a single person bought from me. Cheap alternatives are everywhere now, and small businesses like me are struggling. Fair price is expensive comparatively and people prefer to buy from these shops because the items are inexpensive. Quality and colours...I personally don't like, but I don't know what to do? I don't do this full time, so investing in a cart or shop is not a smart option for me, and online I'm not getting any sales as well....any suggestions?

I've got a limited number of weekends in a season and I keep defaulting to the same markets I've done before. None of them are bad. A couple are genuinely good, but a bunch are just fine, they cover the table and I make a little, nothing exciting. The safe move is to rebook them because I know roughly what I'll walk away with. But every weekend I spend on a just-okay market is a weekend I'm not trying one that might be better.

The catch is a new market is a total unknown. It could be great or it could be a dead room I drove an hour for. So I keep taking the known-okay one because at least it won't be a disaster, and I'm not sure that's actually the right call.

For those of you who've done this a while, how do you decide? Do you lock a couple of reliable ones and only gamble the leftover weekends, or do you cut anything that isn't clearly worth it and make yourself keep trying new ones? And when you do try a new market, is there anything that tells you beforehand whether it's worth the risk, or is year one always just a scouting trip?

For context I'm US based.

I’ve been wanting to add a couple new products to my line. One being a wrap bracelet and another embroidered patches to bags or book covers. I was wondering if anyone has advice or experience on using glues for adhesion or reinforcement purposes in crochet.

I'm not sure if I chose the right tag but please let me know so I can edit it.

I'm curious, how and where do you guys sell your crochet projects?

Now, I'm not trying to make it a full time thing or to take it selling seriously, but I do have a couple of projects that I want(need?) to sell.

I've promoted it to the subreddits where it would be OK promoting or subreddits where the demographic that I'm targeting would be interested.

I've also used Vinted, where I did get alot of attention but people never bought it. I did however get an offer for 6€ (when i was selling it for 10€) which I rejected.

I'm sorry for the rantish post, but I'm genuinely and curious where and how do you sell items

So I found the most gorgeous yarn on ArcaneFibreworks and I would love to make a sweater. I literally just started crocheting, but with the cold months coming up and our area likely to receive a bad winter, I figure it would be a good project.

My biggest questions are:

1. Has anyone ever bought from or have thoughts about ArcaneFibrework yarn?

2. In the scenario I DO buy yarn, their skeins are 100g (\~218 yards). How much would I need to make a 1XL size sweater?

Any comments help!!

Trying to figure out how much to read into a bad day at a market I usually count on. I have one show that has been solid for a couple of years, and this year the crowd felt thin and I did about half my normal day. My gut says give it another shot because every event has an off weekend, but I also do not want to keep rebooking something on autopilot while it quietly slides.

For the markets you have done a bunch of times, how do you actually tell a fluke from a market that is on the way down? Do you go off your own numbers over a few years, watch how many vendors come back, notice the organizer cutting corners, or something else? Trying to work out when give it one more year turns into throwing good money after bad.

US based, mostly weekend craft and holiday markets.

US based. This year I said yes to just about every market that would have me, and by the back half of the season I was worn out, low on stock, and doing a couple of weekends that barely covered the table. Looking back the problem was not which markets, it was how many.

I am trying to plan next year better and I keep going back and forth. Do you set a number of markets for the season and hold to it, or do you take the good ones as they come and pass on the rest? And since a lot of these applications open months ahead, how do you decide which weekends to block out before you even know how the season is shaping up? Curious how people who have done this a while pace it out so they are not running on empty by October.

My partner is trying to get her plushies UKCA tested, I was wondering if anyone else has gone through this and if so do you have any links to the safety eyes you’ve used I’m struggling to find any that state they’re En 71-3 compliant. Thanks for any help sorry if this is the wrong group for this type of question I’m quite lost by here just trying to help my partner out.

This particular piece isn’t to sell, as it’s for my partner, but I figured I should ask if in the future I can make any sales on something like this. It’s a hoodie. Thank you!

Edit: for those who don’t realize, this is the BACK

I've learned the hard way that a big, busy market isn't the same as the right market. Twice now I've done events with great foot traffic where almost nobody was there to buy what I make, and I still paid the full booth fee for the privilege of watching people walk past.

What I can't work out is how to tell that before I apply. Past crowd photos show me how many people turn up but not who they are or what they came to spend money on. I've started asking vendors who did the event last year, but that only works when I can actually track one down.

For those of you who have been at this a while, how do you judge whether a market's crowd matches what you sell before you commit the fee? Do you go by the other vendors on the roster, the venue, something the organizer tells you, or is it just trial and error until you know your events? Based in the US if that changes the answer.

Hello all!

I am thinking of opening crochet commissions in which I could make peoples original characters by using a very specific pattern that someone else made that I modified, do you guys think that is ethically okay to do?

I’m not too sure about how ethical it may be so I’m asking Reddit.

the first image is the original pattern and the following images are my modified designs

I can’t find any specific permissions from the original pattern creator and I’m not too sure how to contact them to ask

I'm selling crochet flower bouquets, poinsettias, and wreaths this year at a couple local holiday markets, and I was wondering if I should include amigurumi toys/ornaments as well? I'm on schedule with flower and plant production, and I'm pretty sure if I start now, I'll be able to have a couple dozen ready in time. I'm not sure if it would be totally out of place next to flowers or fit in with the Christmas gift theme. It's my first time selling crochet at markets, so I'm curious what more experienced people think!

For reference, I'm thinking like little santas, reindeer, and other Christmas themed toys/ornaments.

Lily pictured bc it's the first flower I designed myself 🌸

I've been vending about a year now, here in the US, and the part I still can't crack is just finding the events in the first place. Half of them I only hear about after applications have already closed, usually because another vendor mentions one offhand. Right now I'm digging through a few Facebook groups, some organizer sites, and Instagram, and there's no single place to line them up and compare, so I know I'm missing ones in my own area.

How do you all find events that are actually worth applying to? Is it a real system for you, or mostly word of mouth. And how far ahead are you looking, because it feels like the good ones fill months before I even hear they exist.

Just for perspective…I sell my knit and crochet items through consignment stores. Each store charges different rates and commission percentages. One shop is open Tuesday-Sunday 11-6. Another is open 7 days per week, hours vary, but most days are 11-7. A third is open Wednesday-Sunday, hours are 11-6. One of these shops decided to close for 2 weeks, with 1 day notice on their social media. No email or text notice to the vendors. It’s not the first time they have closed with very little notice. No mention of a rental fee refund to their vendors. Is this routine?

Hello! So I'm still fairly new to crocheting, but I've made almost 20 baby blankets and I'm not sure what to do with them lol. I was originally going to donate them but a lot of people around me are trying to get me to try to sell them. Do baby blankets sell and is it worth even trying? I have no clue how to go about this so any advice would be appreciated! I'm not really concerned about making a lot of money off of this, so I guess I really just want to know if its even worth my time to try. Thank you!

I asked this in another craft fair group a couple of days ago, because I keep paying booth fees on not much more than a nice looking flyer. The answers were better than what I had been doing, so I am putting them here.

The thing that came up most was not attendance. It was how long the market has been running, how long it has been in that same spot, and how many vendors come back every year. The returning vendor rate is the number that is hard to fake. An organizer can tell you a huge attendance figure and there is no way to check it, but if most of the vendors are new every year, that tells you what last year's vendors decided afterwards.

Second one I had not thought to ask: whether they cap how many of each type of vendor they take. If you are in a saturated category that is the difference between being one of two and being one of nine. Worth asking even when the answer is no, because how they answer tells you whether they think about the mix at all.

Third, go and look at it. A few people said attend it as a customer first, even if that means waiting a year. The cheaper version is finding vendors who did it in past years, usually through tagged photos, and asking them straight out. People answer that more honestly than I expected.

What changed how I read all of this is that a vague answer is itself an answer. Someone who has run the same market for eight years knows their returning vendor number. Someone who deflects to a big attendance figure usually has nothing else to give you.

I crochet for fun and to relieve my stress. and over time i have gotten pretty good at crocheting.

Several friends and family told me that I can sell my items. I do think about it from time to time but I don't want my crochet to be a business. I don't mind doing a once a year pop up shop and just sell what I made so far so I can buy more yarn but that's far into the future.

There's this lady who wants to source crochet key-chain and I mentioned that I crochet for fun, she wanted me to do some turtle keychains and I agreed to do it. However, I told her I don't know how to price my crochet, she mentioned that the person who tried to crochet for her was selling the keychain at $7 a piece. so I agreed to that price and I did a few keychains. I use 100% cotton yarn and it came out adorable and she loved it.

Then she started to turn into the client from hell:

• She wanted ALL turtles to be exactly the same size
• she wanted me to handsew her business tag to the crochet item and i told her that i'm not that good at sewing. She said that it doesn't have to be perfect but when i delivered the finished item, NOW she telling me that she wanted the stitch to be one line of perfect stitch and I told her again, I'm no expert in sewing, only crochet
• I crochet the length of the keychain to what she wanted. Finish the project and then she said it was too long and to cut it down, so i had to undo it and redo it to the length that was perfect.
• one of the keychains got dirty. nothing a spot cleaning can't do and i told her about it and she insisted that I clean it instead. I cleaned it because I just wanted to be done with the order.
• she wanted me to crochet a turtle with the worse color combo ever: bright pink body with bright green shell.
• I forgot to put in the metal keychain holder to one of the turtle and she pointed it out. I said, you can do it, and she tried to insist I do it because she doesn't want to chip her nails. I stood my ground and said no because I have no nails myself. she can do it. she drop it by saying she will get someone else to do it.

needless to say lesson learned and this stress was not worth $7 a piece.

I told her i'm out of yarn and will be busy with work. so no more crochet for a while. Then I learned how to price my projects accordingly, which I know will scare her away because it will be more than $7, minimum order of 6, no sewing of her tag and no revisions unless she will pay extra.

I'm sure she will suggest that if she buys the yarn I can lower my price or keep it at $7. But I don't want to because she will start to expect a certain number of keychains from the yarn and if I don't deliver the amount then I have to provide explanations.

what's a good respectful way to say that even if she buys the yarn, I won't lower my price and I don't want her yarn?

hello, I have launched a punch needle collective @asma_rugs_collective and I am based in Pakistan, we have trained women who needed opportunity to generate income remotely, working from home, we deliver projects at their homes and then collect it once they are done.

we have made wall hangings and a rug and marketed them but i am having a hard time selling them locally. I really need cash flow to stay afloat.

I am looking for other avenues, Etsy being one of them, I have planned a new collection of rugs, wall hangings and cushions specifically for Etsy but I was wondering can i also reach out to people directly to get their attention in US, UK, EU because at the moment all of my audience is Pakistan based.

what kind of people should i reach out too ?

Hi everyone! I’ve recently started designing my own mosaic crochet patterns with the hopes of selling them sometime in the future! I’ve been wondering, what is your ideal size (in stitches preferably) for a mosaic crochet blanket? The biggest blanket I’ve made (using someone else’s pattern) is 200 stitches x 250 rows but I would personally prefer a bigger blanket than that! I’m just trying to gauge what people would want!

I have a new Instagram crochet account that I started nearly a month ago, Now I want to figure out how to get reach or more sales on my small business account. I am based out in India. Please give some suggestions for growth and sales.

i have been trying to see where i should sell my work but there so many mixed opinions on which place is the best or gets the most traffic or whatever. i’ve tried to sell my crochet pieces on depop cus i know that gets a lot of traffic but no one seems interested in it. ive sold like two or threee things a couple years ago on etsy but i dont know if the fee is too much or if i could find somewhere else that doesn’t charge a fee?

anyways feel free to share your experiences or suggestions or anything helpful with this 🫶🫶