Commission

A friend of mine came to me asking me to make them a bracelet. We talked about weaves and colors, and this is what we came up with!

This is using some of the last of the turquoise rings leftover from the scarf that I made. I have been hanging on to them for a special occasion, and they were exactly the color my friend wanted! I may have just enough rings to make one more bracelet before they are all gone.

I love this color combination. The frost color makes the turquoise just pop even more.

Couple more cons down, now to relax a few weeks

The past couple weeks have been busy! First I had a 3 day comic con, then 2 weeks later I had a 2 day comic con. I did pretty well with them, too! I am so excited that I have found my customer base.
The 2 day con I went to wasn't attended very well, and most vendors did really poorly with sales. My sales were down a bit, too, but overall I did better than most other vendors, and I did much better than I usually do at craft fairs!

Then, my computer died. The power supply experienced a very loud cascade failure, so I have been working on getting it fixed. I already had a motherboard and processor that I needed to replace, anyway, and my husband bought me a new power supply. I have already swapped them all, and the system powers on. I just need to work on it a little bit more to get it back up and running. Hopefully very soon!

My next con is a 1 day convention being held by a library in the state. This one should be good size, and decently attended, too.
I am starting to expand my range, too, and I am looking into my first con outside of Oklahoma! (just across the border, in Arkansas).

Here are some pictures of my booths at the last couple cons.
I know most people don't care so much about these pictures of my booth, but when I was first starting out, I would scour the web for booth examples. Now that I am a bit more experienced, I want to share my setup, in case it inspires others who are just starting out.

Here is my setup for the 3 day con, in Enid, OK:

I did tweak a few things after this picture was taken. Most notably, I moved the big display stand on the right, forward, so it was next to the table, rather than behind it. That encouraged more people to step closer to look.

2 weeks later, for the 2-day con, here is my setup (a corner booth, too!)

Ugh, ignore the exposed side under the table. The fabric I had was barely long enough to cover the table. It was a bigger table than I expected (which just gives more room for merchandise!).

As you can see with both of these, I had lots of space. Because of this, I actually took advantage and used not only my large pegboard display, but I also setup a small version of the portable one, as well. This way I was able to put out many more items for sale.
I have a feeling that my library con will be limited for space, so there is a chance I may not be able to even use the large display. We'll see!

I learned a new weave!

I have joined a couple chainmail groups on Facebook, and I am constantly amazed at all the different designs and weaves out there. There are still quite a few that I don't feel talented enough to even attempt.
That being said, I came across an interwoven 4-in-1 weave. It is basically 2 different strips of your basic Euro 4-1 that you see used in armor, etc, but the 2 strips are interwoven into each other.

I pulled up a tutorial to learn just how difficult it really is, and I was super excited to find a tutorial on how to make a stretchy version. You know me! I looooove the stretchy bracelets. I immediately had to give it a try.

It was actually not as difficult as I was expecting. I really like how it turned out, too.
I don't know if I will make more of these to sell, though, as I would have to charge more. This is basically 2 bracelets in one, so it takes more time and more materials.

 Here is the flip side: