Coming to DC!

 

This weekend I will be driving down to DC for Crafty Bastards! I'll be there Saturday (9/27) only from 10-5. It is always an amazing show and I'm lucky to leave without spending all my money; the quality of the vendors is always so good.

Crafty Bastards is at Union Market this year, at 1309 5th Street NE, near the NoMa-Gallaudet University/New York Ave metro stop.

I hope to see some of you there, it's going to be a great show!

Union Market photo via Buncee

Bye Bye, DC

Photo by PostcardsofthePast on Etsy

We are leaving DC today after two and a half years. First to visit family for Christmas, and then flying to Hong Kong in one week. From there, three months in Thailand, Cambodia and India.

I knew almost nothing about DC before I moved here (except that Joe moved here and there was an internship waiting for me at The Textile Museum). It's been such a great place to live, start a business, make so many amazing new friends, and stay in touch with all the old friends that live in the area.

Thanks to everyone who has made the last few years so much fun. Bye bye, DC, but I will definitely be back!

Last Show of the Year!

Tomorrow (Thursday) will be my last craft show of the year at the Downtown Holiday Market. It's been an amazing year, and after some number crunching I realized that last weekend was my best show to date, so thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth!


If you want to stop by one more time, you can come this Thursday from 11:30am-8pm outside the National Portrait Gallery (I'll be the one wearing 100 coats and five scarves) and you can find more information here. I hope to see you there!

The Downtown Holiday Market Starts Today!

It's that time of year again: the Downtown Holiday Market starts today! Come down to the Portrait Gallery in Penn Quarter/Gallery Place from 12-8 today (Friday), Saturday and Sunday for opening weekend. And for a schedule of my other holiday markets, you can check my website right here. I hope to see you there!

Weekend Update with Katharine Watson

Get it? SNL joke.

This is going to be one busy weekend: Saturday is the last Ballston Arts & Crafts Market of the year, and the weather right now says it will be sunny and 75 degrees, which is basically the most perfect weather there is. I'm glad because I don't think I could sit out in the rain again this weekend, after spending the majority of this week wrapped up on the couch recovering from Crafty Bastards.

I'll be there all day Saturday, so stop by from 10 am to 4 pm to take a look.

Then on Sunday I will be doing another trunk show at Nana in Mt. Pleasant! The last one was really fun, it is much more relaxed than doing a craft show because it is just me, a table of stuff and an all-day demonstration. Last time I was doing a printing demo, but this time I will be carving blocks so stop by Nana on Sunday if you want to learn how it's done!

They also just released a new line of clothing, so there is plenty to see at Nana on Sunday. See you there!

Cold, but a Success!

Thanks to everyone who came out to Crafty Bastards on Saturday! The weather was awful, rainy and definitely the coldest day of the year so far, but I was so surprised and excited to see the crowds that came out despite the weather. I think Joe and I went through about ten cups of coffee/tea/hot chocolate, just to keep our hands warm, but the booth was so busy I barely had time to focus on shivering.

It was great to meet so many blog readers at the show! Thanks to everyone who came by to say hi, it's so nice to meet people in person and not just through the internet.

My favorite part of the day was the sale bin: I had a few items that have been sitting around for the last few months that were either slightly damaged (prints with big mistakes just go in the trash) or hadn't sold, so I decided to put them on sale. That, and dropping a handful of pieces into a puddle as we were loading in meant that I had a nice little box full of "factory seconds." Instead of pricing them, I put a "Name Your Price" sign on the box and people could offer any amount they felt was reasonable. Nobody touched the box for the first few hours, and people said they were afraid to make an offer, but eventually people got into it and it was really fun to have people buy something for what they thought it was worth. The entire box was sold by the early afternoon, and for pretty similar prices to what I would have labeled anyway!

From reading the vendor list, I know there were a ton of great vendors at the show, but I barely had time to see anyone (I didn't leave the booth except to run for more hot drinks).

Nole at Oh So Beautiful Paper rounded up a few of her favorites from the day here, and it looks like there was some amazing stuff (and I'm so happy to be on there too!)

Another article to read: I did an interview with NBC Washington last week (!) about participating in Crafty Bastards, and it's online now right here.

Today I am cuddled up on the couch with more hot drinks, a blanket and a Netflix queue, trying to get rid of the cold I got from standing outside all day Saturday. It's a good excuse to catch up on some reality TV, though.

Also, it's not too late to vote for your favorite vendor from the show (even if you weren't there!), just click the icon below to cast your vote. You have until Saturday, October 8th to vote.

Thanks again to everyone who made the day a huge success and came out despite the weather, I had an amazing time!

Crafty Bastards is Tomorrow!

It's finally here...Crafty Bastards is tomorrow! This show was one of the first things I heard about when I moved to DC two years ago, and I'm so excited to be a part of it this year. The last few weeks have been crazy with printing, sewing and packaging (as well as shipping my normal wholesale and Etsy orders), and my apartment couldn't be any more full of prints. Literally every surface is covered with drying tea towels, and to get from the bedroom to the kitchen you have to tiptoe between one-inch gaps of floor. All in the name of art! Tomorrow everything will be neatly folded and packaged, and ready for the Crafty Bastards crowds.

Don't forget, you can vote for your favorite vendor by clicking the link below:

AND! Don't forget the sale to all blog readers, mention this post to get $6 off the price of a tea towel!

See you all there!

Prep Work

Crafty Bastards is coming up this Saturday, and is the show I've been most excited for all year. It takes place right down the street from me in Adams Morgan, and if I forget anything I can just run the two blocks home and grab it.

I visited the show last year as a customer, and it was the most crowded craft fair I have ever been to, like a block of people shuffling from booth to booth. I am so excited to be on the other side of things this year, and am manically prepping as much as I can.

Today is the last day I can print so the ink will be dry by Saturday, but there is plenty of sewing, book binding and packaging* to do after that.

*Thanks to Sara Brinda I have been much more conscious of Oxford commas lately, but decided not to use one here. Thoughts?

Coasters debuting on Saturday!

I will be doing a special sale this weekend for those blog readers/email subscribers: if you mention this post, you can get a $26 organic fair-trade tea towel for just $20! All you have to do is mention the blog, and I will give you $6 off every towel you buy.

There is also a competition to vote for the "Craftiest Bastard" of 2011, so you can click this super fancy link and vote! All you have to do is enter your email address, with no account sign-ups or anything. Thanks in advance!

Arts on Foot, and a One Year Birthday!

Image from the amazing food blog Sprouted Kitchen

This blog is one today! I won't be having a huge 50% off sale again to celebrate, but I wanted to say thanks to everyone who has been reading for the past year. Here's to another great year!

Arts on Foot was this past weekend, and although it was a very different atmosphere than last year, it was still a great show. It was a quiet weekend in DC (as it should have been), with none of the crowds and excitement of last year, but it was great to see everyone who stopped by. And the new monogram cards were a huge success! They were flying off the shelves, and should be up in the online store this week. I will let you know when they are ready, and hopefully they will fly off the online shelves as well!

I made a "Hand Block Printing" banner with the cards, I love the look of them all strung together.
 

Hi Joe! 

I also had monogrammed tote bags for sale this weekend which were a hit, and I'll be adding them to the store this week too.

All packed up at the end of the weekend, ready to load up the car. The perfect time to enjoy some beers and dumplings at one of the only Chinese restaurants in DC's "Chinatown."

A Big Thank You, and Ballston Market

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the shop on Friday to take advantage of the 50% off sale! There was a huge response, and I'm so happy that I could offer that discount to all of my long-time followers and friends. Thanks to everyone who has supported me and made the past year a success!

On Saturday, I had a booth at the Ballston Arts and Crafts Market in Arlington. The forecast said sunny, but it ended up raining for most of the day, and traffic was slow. It was a perfect time to get some work done on a project that I will be announcing next month though, so look out for that! I'll be back at the Ballston Market in October, so hopefully the weather will cooperate then.

Photos by Joe, who was practicing his camera skills while it rained

Unfortunately, I fell and hurt my hand this weekend, so I have to take a few days off from printing while it heals. That means it's time for some administrative work, and I'll be back to making things in a few days. Maybe I should get hand insurance like celebrities get on their legs, just in case.

Weekend In Review

This was a great weekend, with two amazing shows, beautiful weather, and plenty of great people coming in and out of the booth. On Saturday, I set up at the first Fenton Street Market of the year in downtown Silver Spring. I did the Fenton Street Market last year, when it was in the old location, and this location was a hundred times better. There was so much foot traffic coming through with the farmers market, shops and restaurants, and we even stayed an hour late because it was so crowded.

Sunday was my trunk show and demonstration at Nana in Mt. Pleasant. I had never done a demonstration like this before, and it was great to show people how the items were made while they were shopping. Nana is such a great space, and I was tempted by the amazing clothes all day while I was working.

So many people stopped by to watch and try it out, from people who had never heard of block printing to artists who were glad to watch someone at work. A big thank you to everyone who stopped by both days!

The Weekend In Review

This was an interesting weekend. There's nothing like a terrible show to send you looking in a new direction. I went into into it with very high hopes: the November show I did in Gaithersburg was one of my best experiences, so I was expecting this to be similar. It's not Christmas, so I knew sales would be down, but I was not expecting it to bomb.

One thing I've always noticed at the "Fine Art" shows I do is the way people talk to me. There is always a handful of amazing people, who are genuinely interested in talking about my work or anything related to it, and I love these conversations. But this weekend I got a lot of pity comments. One woman walked by and said "This is that thing that little kids do when they scratch colors on to a board and make pictures."

I'm not saying I never hear negative comments; people have different opinions at every show. But I've never been to a show where people seemed so concerned for my well-being, and were trying to offer me advice even though they have no experience to speak from. One woman, who had never heard of block printing, told me I would definitely have to expand my line in order to sell anything. One man asked me if I could afford to buy food.

So when I found this TED talk on Girls Can Tell this morning, it really spoke to me. In the beginning of her talk, Elizabeth Gilbert describes the way people reacted when she told them she wanted to be a writer, and it seemed incredibly similar to some of the comments I heard this weekend.

I really enjoyed her insights on creative careers and the way people respond to them, and it seemed like an incredibly fitting way to start the week. I especially liked the line: "Is it rational that anyone is expected to be afraid of the work that they feel that they were put on this earth to do?"

It can be easy to hear negative comments and take them to heart, but I came home last night and got straight to work on researching new projects. To some extent, criticism is great for creating better work, but when that is all you hear, it's time to move on. I know there are plenty of people and venues that do appreciate what I do, and I will be working harder to find those from now on!

Cherry Blossom Season

The cherry blossoms are blooming in DC, and the crowds of tourists are everywhere. I didn't venture down to the tidal basin to be squished in with the thousands of other people having a serene moment looking at the blossoms, but the trees in my neighborhood are just as spectacular, so I did a little local tourism instead.

There are lots of exciting projects happening around here that I can't wait to share, so look out for some exciting announcements in the coming weeks!

Gaithersburg this Weekend!

This weekend I will be heading out to Gaithersburg, MD for another Sugarloaf Craft Festival. I had an amazing time in Gaithersburg in November, and if this weekend is half as busy as that, I'll be very happy.

The regular entrance fee is $10, but if you would like a free ticket to visit all the amazing food and craft vendors, I will be giving away five free tickets! Just send an email to katharinegwatson [at] gmail [dot] com with your mailing address, and if you are one of the first five, I will get one in the mail to you!

All photos via thriftypyg on Etsy