Behind the Stitches: From the Studio to the Table: What I Learned at My First Craft Fair

For a long time, Sideshow Knitting has existed primarily online. I've gotten comfortable photographing finished pieces, writing listings, posting on social media, and finding ways to show people what I make through a screen. But there's something very different about taking everything I've created and putting it on a table where people can walk up, pick things up, feel the yarn, try things on, and talk to the person who made them. This year, I finally got the chance to do exactly that.

Both my mother and mother-in-law knew I was starting Sideshow Knitting online and saw an opportunity for me to get my feet wet with selling in person on a smaller scale. It seemed like a good way to try something new without jumping immediately into a huge craft show or committing to something I had never done before. That didn't mean I wasn't nervous.

I was definitely a combination of excited, nervous, and overwhelmed. And honestly, that feeling didn't really go away until I had packed everything back into the car and was heading home. There is something different about knowing that people are about to see your work in person. Online, you can take the perfect photo and write the perfect description. At a craft fair, the products are sitting right there in front of people—and so are you.

The first challenge was figuring out what to bring. I knew there was no way I could bring everything in the shop, so I tried to think about what would make sense for the audience and what would give people a good idea of what Sideshow Knitting has to offer. I ended up bringing hats, scarves, mittens, fingerless gloves, keychains, crossbody bags, and mug wraps. Then came the realization that my table was a lot smaller than it looked.

It's one thing to have a collection of products sitting around your kitchen or stored away in containers. It's another thing entirely to try to put all of those things on one table and make the display look good. Suddenly, I was trying to figure out where everything should go, how much space each product needed, and how to make the whole thing visually pleasing. That was probably the most difficult part of the day.

But once everything was set up, I learned something I hadn't fully appreciated from selling online: **people want to touch handmade things.**

I ended up putting an example of each type of product outside of my little display crates so people could get up close and personal with them. That simple decision led to some of my favorite interactions of the day. People wanted to talk about the yarn. They wanted to know about the process. They could pick things up and feel the different textures while we talked about what went into making them. Those conversations were something I simply can't recreate through an Etsy listing or an Instagram post.

Of course, having people actually look at my work in person brought a whole new level of nerves with it. When someone walked up to the table, there was definitely an extra shot of "AHH!" going through my head. But then they would compliment something I'd made. And that was a pretty incredible boost.

I'm naturally self-critical when it comes to things I create. I can look at something I've made and immediately start thinking about what I could have done differently or what I might improve next time. So hearing people genuinely get excited about the products—and actually deciding to buy them—was better than I expected.

Selling something online is exciting, but there's a little bit of distance between you and the customer. At a craft fair, you get to see that moment happen right in front of you. Someone picks something up, looks at it, talks about it, and decides that they want to take it home. That was a really rewarding experience. One of my favorite moments happened while I was doing something that felt completely normal tome: knitting.

I brought some supplies with me so I could work on a project during the event. At one point, I was knitting a hat when someone walked up and was practically speechless about how I was making it. They were incredibly complimentary—not just about the finished work sitting on the table, but about watching the process itself. That moment reminded me that something I've become accustomed to doing can still be fascinating to someone seeing it for the first time.

For me, knitting is part of the everyday process of running Sideshow Knitting. But watching someone stop and become genuinely interested in how a piece comes together was a pretty great reminder of just how special handmade work can be.

By the end of the event, I was really happy with how everything turned out. I don't think I would change much about what I brought or how I approached it. That's part of why this first craft fair was so valuable to me. It wasn't just an opportunity to sell some products. It was a test. I got to see what it was like to set everything up, figure out how to display my products, talk with customers face-to-face, explain the yarn and the process, and experience what it feels like to make a sale in person rather than online.

And now that I've done it once, I'm even more excited about possibly doing more. There are definitely things I'll change next time. The biggest piece of advice I'd give myself is probably the simplest:

**Bring a bigger table.**

My first craft fair taught me that I have more things than I thought I could fit on a table—and that's a pretty good problem to have. More importantly, though, it taught me that Sideshow Knitting works outside of the studio and outside of a computer screen. People connect with the products when they can touch them. They connect with the stories behind the yarn. They connect with the process when they can see it happening.

And I connected with them, too. That's something I didn't fully know I was missing until I experienced it.

My first craft fair may have been a small step, but it gave me a much better idea of what Sideshow Knitting can become. For now, I'm taking everything I learned, enjoying the fact that people liked what I made enough to take some of it home, and already looking forward to the next time I get to move from the studio to the table.

- Blair, Sideshow Knitting