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Agwen 7 years, 1 month ago.
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What a fabulous weekend that was!! I really enjoyed it and was proud to be part of such an awesome team.
It was great to see other morsbaggers from around the country, even if we didn’t get much time to chat. We had some very busy moments!!
If anyone out there took a kit home to make a morsbag, we would love to hear from you and see photos of your finished bag.Thanks for starting this thread Tori! I will post a few photos when we unpack the car. It’s been raining since we got home so we’ve delayed getting everything out til we can do it in the dry. Those poor old machines have had enough of a wetting!
We left home loaded with old sewing machines, some of them in boxes, plus bags of morsbags, kits, thread, labels, a gazebo, chairs and a small table. We even managed to fit in a few clothes!
The photo above was taken before the last few chairs were added.
We got to Ragley Hall in plenty of time on the day before the show opened and helped Rosie and Grumpy put up their new gazebo (a posh one with three walls), then started on ours – which wasn’t new and didn’t have walls, but this was its first outing as the event it was bought for had been abandoned due to gales a couple of years ago.
Thursday night / Friday morning were wet and windy and we arrived back to a couple of damp gazebos, but fortunately we had expected that and had packed everything under the tables to keep the rain off. Before we left the site on Thursday Frank had tied the tables, sewing machines and gazebos all together with handy bits of rope we had in the boot of the car (do you think he was a boy scout?) so it was all still there in spite of the strong winds. The site security had even hung a large piece of sacking over the front of the gazebo that had walls, so it was relatively snug
Wendy and Mike were there before us, so we were set up in time for the punters to arrive and spent the morning doing our stuff – sewing bags on the hand cranks and handing out ready-made bags, talking to people about plastic bags and giving kits to people who could sew and didn’t want to wait, as the queue grew quite quickly.
This young man was queuing and decided to entertain us all – juggling. We didn’t have any balls, but we did have bowls – much harder to juggle with!
The weather deteriorated during the afternoon and we had several monsoon-like showers. That was when we discovered that Rosie and Grumpy’s gazebo wasn’t waterproof, and our gazebo REALLY NEEDED walls! Would you rather be rained on all over by fine drizzle or have lashing rain coming in from the side? Neither option gives you a dry environment. We discovered that wet sewing machines don’t like sewing wet kits with wet thread, and Trisha and Tori were incredibly stoical when having rain pouring off the roof of the gazebos, onto their heads and down their backs. The showers were short and sharp with lovely warm sunny intervals between them – are we sure it wasn’t April?
We took some things back to our hotels to dry them out. The lovely ladies with the converted caravan beside us – the Pampervan – let us use their waterproof polypropylene gazebo to store the sewing machines in overnight and Frank used guy ropes to hold our gazebos down as before.
Saturday’s weather was reasonable – probably because Grumpy went out to B&Q and bought a couple of tarpaulins to sling over the roof of the leaking gazebo plus some rope to tie them down, and we managed to dry out some of the kits and bags that had got wet on Friday. Sorry I have no photos of that day, but it went well – we had help from Carol and Jacqui from Macs Bags, as well as Sue from Mrs So Bags.
Sunday was Patrick Grant Day! I spotted him being driven round the site on a quad bike before the show opened – we were right opposite the theatre where talks etc went on all day. I expect he was getting the guided tour.
During the morning Patrick dropped in and completed a partly-made bag that Tracy had ready.
Also at the Fair that day was Bryony whose bag came third in the competition – here she is, carrying it –
Later that afternoon Tracy presented her winning bag to Patrick in the theatre –
(Sorry I missed the actual presentation! 🙁 )
Sincere thanks go to Sarah who saved my life every afternoon with a welcome cup of tea and a bun or biscuit! You don’t half get dehydrated talking all day long!
Our “customers” made 162 bags over the three days of the Handmade Fair – not bad for a load of old handcranks! Also, about 500 morsbags were given out, and approximately 300 kits, ironed and ready to sew.
Don’t think I will ever forget peering across the table and through the water haze at a member of the public calmly inspecting a seam while the water ran down his face and the bag dripped on the floor. Without comment he continued to sew it up while I tried to work out the expression on his face.
Just as well we had no electrics to worry about.Fabulous write up Beattie. We didn’t let a little rain stop us did we?!!
Not even a lot of rain, Tori! You and Amanda and Trish were indomitable – the iron women!
Thank you for the report Beattie. Mike and I enjoyed ourselves on the Friday and Carol & Jacqui had a good time on Saturday. I thought it was a little damp on Friday but by the sounds of it, Saturday and Sunday got a bit wetter.
People were keen to make a bag, even waiting in line for longer than it took to make the bag.
Thank you to Rosie, Beattie and Frank for your hard work over the 4 days.
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