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I’ve discovered a cure for cold nights (and days) indoors…stitching with buttons!
I’ve taken to making button embellished headbands and selling them on Etsy.com, which is an awesome sight bringing the handicrafts marketplace directly to you via the interweb! Below are some of my wares. Please visit my store ButtonsAndCards!
Please come along and support local crafts people, drink awesome coffee, and buy a few of my cards…think of your granny, when was the last time you spoke with her…she’d appreciate a nicely composed card in the post wouldn’t she???
So, Emmet and I spent the day at12 Newmarket Street, Dublin, otherwise known as the Dublin Food Coop, but on the first Sunday of every month becomes the Crafty Market. It was an interesting experience, one that I found surprisingly stressful, but then, that’s me. What was stressing me out was the fact that I don’t usually spruik my wares quite so publicly, it has always been within the comfort of my own family, friends and acquaintances, but this was about as public as you get. Not only that, but there were a couple of other photographers there too, which meant comparisons would be made…at least that’s what my paranoid little mind was telling me. What concerned me most was that by half way through the day we hadn’t made one sale. I had, however, received a number of genuine compliments, but then compliments don’t pay the market stall rent.
Emmet, of course, was cool, calm and collected and enjoyed engaging the passers by. He made the first sale while I was away from the table taking a break and having a wander around. That made me feel a little better. One buy. I knew we had to sell ten in order to cover the rent of the stall, which at 30 Euros for the day was pretty reasonable. In the end we sold five cards, one at a time, in the final few hours of the day. I walked away with 17.50 Euro, which left me a little out of pocket, but the experience (and Luca’s coffee) was worth the effort.
What was disappointing though, was the lack of turn out. Most of the people there were ether friends and family or passing tourists. There could have been more of the tourists, that’s for sure, and probably a marketing issue – my recommendation would be talking with the bus company that does the tours of the city as they stop just around the corner at St Patrick’s Cathedral, I think they also stop at Christchurch, which is not too far either. Sadly, though, there isn’t much enthusiasm from the general public for markets like these, or, arguably, markets in general. To me this is a bit strange, but then I like nothing better than being able to purchase directly from the producer, be they a grower, a farmer or a knitter. But then, it may all be in the timing. The market is on a Sunday, and as Emmet and I discovered, Dublin city is a virtual desert on a Sunday morning but for the wandering tourists, luggage, camera or unfolded map in hand. Sunday morning in Dublin is, logically, either time for recovery from the night (or nights) before, or time to visit God’s house. Again, though, superb marketing opportunities – offer local churchgoers a flier and entice those with a cloudy head with what I maintain is Dublin’s best coffee from Luca’s Freedom Cafe. Thankfully, Birdy and Brian came out to say hello, which we appreciated. I think seeing some familiar faces brightened us both up after we’d tried so hard to generate interest with text messages, Facebook posts and random poster hangings.
So, the moral of this story is that Dublin’s crafties need you, yes you, not ‘you’ maybe someone else will do it, it’ll be okay I don’t have to go and help or contribute…no, you means you.You can support local industry, local crafts people, who in turn support local suppliers, or try to find supplies at a cheap cost so you don’t have to spend too much helping them out. No kudos for blaming the recession, the recession won’t stop you from buying a pint, so why not put that pint’s worth of Euros into something more tangible, something handmade, homemade, original, one of a kind, something you can take home with you that won’t give you a headache in the morning.
That said, will I go back for another try? Maybe. We shall see. I think the interest is actually building and it would be good to be part of something positive and uplifting in Dublin when much of the atmosphere is quite dreary, because of the recession and also because, and I genuinely believe this, the weather. Maybe next time I will see if I can take a basket of brightly coloured cupcakes, as if one thing is guaranteed to sell at the crafty market, or indeed any market, it’s food!
If anyone is interested in some cards, I will be updating my Facebook group with what I have in stock and probably also put up a blog, but you can email me at stevie@stephaniefargher.com, and also take a look at my website. I can do them for 3.50 Euro or 4.50 AUD each, or five for 15 Euro or 20 AUD (sorry Aussies, but the dollar is worth bugger all over here these days, which sucks cos the buying power back home is awesome comparably!) + postage).
So, we’ve arrived safe and sound into ol’ Dublin town. The flight was long, but fortunately Etihad flies directly to Abu Dhabi and then on to Dublin, dividing the journey into around 14 hours and 8 hours, much more reasonable than the Dublin-to-other Euro city (1-2 hours) + other Euro city-to-Asian hub (20 odd hours) + Asian hub-to-Sydney (around 8 or 9 hours). Okay, maybe my assessment of those travel times is a little off, but basically what I’m trying to say is that while travelling Economy is never ideal Etihad made the journey bearable. Although I think we somehow managed to have three breakfasts over the course of the 25 hours between Sydney and Dublin. To be honest a little bit of egg and tomato is preferable to several larger meals, it means less time spent in those teeny tiny toilets and it means a more comfortable belly for us long haul customers.
Survived the flight by watching Bride Wars – not as bad as I thought it was going to be, although Anne Hathaway is a way better actor than Kate Hudson, Easy Virtue, which was wonderful – all you Colin Firth fans out there should probably watch this, he has some of the best lines, and Marley & Me, which was completely watchable even though it has Jennifer Aniston in a lead role, and gave me a little tear given I was leaving my Tilly behind in Wollongong.
The stop over in Abu Dhabi was interesting. The reason we decided not to spend time there in between flights was cost, because we arrived around twenty-passed midnight we would have had to pay for two night accommodation, $800-odd we thought was a little excessive. I did notice the indignant couple seated in front of us for the first leg of the flight, who boarded the plane very late and then spent the entire flight with their seats back had decided to spend that $840. Before landing we were party to a promo video that detailed all the features and available developments in Abu Dhabi. I’d be curious to have a look around, but the whole things strikes me as a little odd. One of the main features they plug is the malls…you can shop until your heart’s content in Abu Dhabi, but at the end of the day, it’s the same ol’ stuff you can purchase anywhere else, only tax free. Also, in the video, ‘local’ families are portrayed enjoying a walk through the malls, the wife in her cover-up clothes walking side by side with her professionally dressed husband and her children along side. Interestingly enough, this is not what we saw at the airport. While I have absolutely no problem with the religious and spiritual convictions of others provided they do not impinge on my own beliefs ad vice-versa, I must admit that I was taken aback by the women in, what I believe are called niqab, the black fabric head and face cover that only has a slit for the eyes. In this case the women seemed to have pinned the eye slit so as to also cover the bridge of their noses. What interested me most was that these women were accompanied by their husbands who wore trendy jeans and brand name t-shirts with some swanky brand of sneaker. While I probably would have taken notice of the ladies in their outfits anyway, as I’ve not previously been in the presence of such numbers, I don’t know that I would have thought much of it had the men not been in such capitalistic garb…food for thought.
Anyway, we arrived at Dublin after two very steady and ‘relatively’ comfortable flights to find that spring had most definitely sprung! The weather here, for the last two days has been brilliant. The sun is out, flowers are blooming, birds are singing and there’s a cool breeze in the air to take the edge off too much sun. It is a little strange, and probably not helping too much with the jetlag, but the sun is up until around 10pm! It’s glorious, but I have absolutely no idea what time it is when judging by the amount of light out!
On our first full day in Dublin Mr Emmet took be into town to have a look around, and in an attempt to figure out the buses and somehow get my bearings…I’m just as lost as ever but I now have a collection of possible homeward bound bus timetables in my bag…shame I wouldn’t have a clue which is my stop! Mount Merrion isn’t far from town, it’s very suburban and very Irish, if you ask me – the foreigner. It’s lovely though, and the plots of land on which the houses are set is quite large for the outer suburbs of an international city – in comparison to the estates you see in Western Sydney that have McMansions taking up every possible square metre of space with concrete rather than preserving any green space. Most of the houses are set back from the street with a small area for parking up to two cars before the front door. They’re a couple of stories, with bedrooms upstairs and living areas downstairs – they pretty much all look like they follow the same design, from what I can tell from the outside. Then there’s a significant back area, well, enough for Emmet and I to throw a ball around with the lovely Daisy. One of the major issues for suburban Dublin though, is water. There doesn’t appear to be much of it, the pressure is really low and having a shower is a bit of a chore. I had an incident today, all I wanted was a nice warm shower…but it wasn’t happening. You have to flick this switch and that switch and turn on the pump…etc etc etc. Okay, so it probably isn’t that hard, but it’s not walking into the shower turning it on and having instant hot water flowing consistently and hard enough to have a light massaging effect on your shoulders. Anyway, being the second day here, my being more than a little jetlagged and the lack of any sort of routine for me meant a few tears before we worked out how to get the thing moving…I’m now happy to say that I’m all clean and shiny.
So yesterday Mr Emmet showed be around parts of his home town, seeing it in a slightly different light, showing it off with lots of little tid-bits and random facts. We wandered through Trinity College, which I’m sure he thought was so blase as he went to Uni there, but I enjoyed it. There was a tonne of tourists out and about doing the same and I think we walked through a wedding on the grounds as well. The line for the Book of Kells was already long…this was around 10 in the morning, with the only people up at that hour the tourists…no Dubs. We wandered on through Temple Bar and found us a little market like the ones we were going to in Pyrmont but not of that scale. In any case some very decent coffee was had! I was pleased to find it as last time I was here the best coffee I managed to locate was from Starbucks, which says a lot, unfortunately. They had lots of yummy things but we refrained…this time.
The Maritime Festival was on down at the Quays so we wandered down there. There were a few boats and a bunch if market type stalls as well as some rides and things for the kids. We wandered along the wrong side of the Liffey looking at all the development that’s going on there. There’s a new bridge that apparently has come in from Denmark – made entirely there and then brought over by boat, it’s not quite ready for use just yet, but it’ll be an interesting feature, a modern take on the traditional Irish harp. We eventually noticed that we were on the wrong side and all the boats were docked on the other side so we took a small ferry across – Emmet’s first time actually on the Liffey apparently, mine too, an continued our wander around. I managed to get myself burnt, either here on on the walk through St Stephen’s Green, which was FULL of people in clothing ranging from bikinis (it really wasn’t bikini weather) to t-shirts and shorts to jumpers and jackets! Funnily enough, although there was no ‘keep off the grass’ sign to be seen, the masses managed to avoid certain sections of grass…well trained by the looks.
That was pretty much our day…although we did find a lovely restaurant for lunch and potential small after eloping celebratory lunch venue, the Pig’s Ear…yum!
More to come…photos soon…
