Aprons - and other things - at the market

Our village has an annual market in late spring. It's a big event for our village, which is off the beaten track and has nothing much to commend it to tourists, compared to some of the nearby villages which have stunning views, stately homes, picturesque gardens, 'listed' buildings, medieval churches and even castles. One or two of our neighbouring villages are very strictly 'preserved' in a sort of time-warp, and hence popular for filming period dramas and the like. 

We have none of that, Instead, we have a busy village committee who organise things like the market and the field day, and re-enactments on the playing fields. 

This year, instead of the market being held in the village 'square' (actually, it's a triangle) it was held in the grounds of the 'trading estate' -  an old converted mill complex - which was a much better idea. 

I had tentatively said I would attend; I had aprons made, lots of bunting, rod pockets for the fishermen ...  

Full aprons drying on the washing line

At 8am on the morning of the market, I was still in bed when there was a knocking at the door - it was the market organiser making sure I was ready to attend - yawn! 

I staggered up,  and down the lane I went with my boxes and bags. Fortunately it was less than 100m away, and my friend brought me a nice hot mug of coffee from her house as I set up my 'stall'.

My stall at the Village Market - nearly sold out and
only been open for an hour and a half!

It was cold and it was windy - I had to take the aprons off the rack and hold them down with the rod pockets (which BTW were filled with garden canes cut to length, just in case someone thought they might liberate themselves a nice new rod) -.but the rain held off and the crowds poured in, eager to buy. The Allotment Society sold out within minutes, it seemed - British Asian women on a day out from the East Lancashire industrial towns south of us almost stormed the Society's  stall, determined to fill their gardens with lovely, healthy home-grown plants at bargain prices.

I sold bias binding, too - you can't get binding
like this in the shops! 

I didn't do too badly, either. I sold everything and took orders! At one point, just as the photo above of my stall was taken, it was looking very bare so my friend took over the stall for a few minutes while I dashed home for some more stock! I had a couple of half-aprons I'd made, some more bunting (I had to sit at my stall and trim the threads off it - it was finished but not 'finished off') and - bizarre genius - bias binding. I'd got a bias binding machine for Christmas and had been making miles of the stuff; I thought that sewers or crafters would not want to buy a finished item, but they might well be interested in buying bias binding - and they were!