New poster for March

Next week our new poster for the March (CHILLOUT) Makers Market will be going up all around Daylesford. Our latest recruit to the organising team will also be out and about at local restaurants and venues distributing leaflets with all the market dates on. If you can help with getting our posters and leaflets out in your neighbourhood or at other makets you attend please let us know! And feel free to put this poster on your blog or website.

ChillOut Market

The annual ChillOut Festival takes place in Daylesford on the Labour Day weekend (5-8 March).

This year we're collaborating with the festival organisers to hold a special ChillOut Daylesford Makers Market. It's taking place at the Town Hall on Saturday 6 March and will feature 48 makers from around Victoria.

All proceeds from stall fees will be donated to the CFA Glenlyon Group, supporting local bushfire brigades who protect lives and property in our area.

There are lots of fantastic makers and designers, including many first-timers. Geoffrey Williams will be performing throughout the day.

Hope you can make it along. ChillOut is a huge event in Daylesford, loads to do for families including the Street parade, Carnival, Twilight Cinema, music, horse riding, picnics and heaps more. It's the best fun. See the ChillOut website for details.

Stalls are pretty much booked out for the ChillOut Market, but if you are interested please apply through the Market website and we'll try and squeeze you in. We're confirming stalls this week, so if you've already applied you'll hear from us soon. The April Market (another biggie, as it's held on the Easter weekend) is also nearly full, so get your application in fast!

The Daylesford Craft Experience

Very exciting times in Daylesford. As well as our Makers Market going from strength to strength, there's talk of a new craft club in town, whispers about some exciting projects, and there are lots of collaborations happening between the various crafty and hand made businesses. Lots of meetings over coffee or wine, lots of ideas being hatched. New crafty people moving into town, new craft blogs. One of the most exciting things to come out of all this crafty collaboration is the Daylesford Craft Experience, a two-day retreat in the gorgeous Peppers Springs, set to take place the first weekend of July.

There'll be workshops with some top crafters including Jodie Carleton of Ric Rac, Melanie Hurlston of Melly & Me and Anette Eriksson. Lots of fun to be had meeting other crafters, sharing ideas and learning new skills. Threadneedle Craft and Purl's Palace are hosting the event and you can find out more here.

We'll be running a special Daylesford Makers Market on the Saturday (3 July) to welcome all the crafters into town, and it will be open late for post-workshop drinkies! Booking for this July craftastic market will be open soon, watch this space. Exciting times!!

Thanks for today!

A big thank you to everyone who took part in today's market, and also to the lovely visitors who made the effort to come.

It's the first time we've held the market in February and we've been worrying for weeks - will there be enough stalls, will the weather be too hot, will anyone come at this time of year? But everything went wonderfully today.

We arranged for access through the front of the Town Hall on Vincent Street, which brought in a lot of extra people.

We had listened to the feedback from the last event and really pumped up the marketing and publicity this time.

We featured a lot of new stallholders and there was an instant camaraderie between them. Several people remarked on how nice the makers are at our market compared to others! It does have an easygoing vibe, maybe from being in Daylesford. But sales were also good and pretty much everyone was surprised at how well they did, given the time of year.

For most of the day, until the afternoon, the hall was full of people. A great sign, as the March and April markets are being held on very busy weekends (ChillOut and Easter), so goodness knows how busy we will get!

We made some great new friends today and are really looking forward to the market being a regular monthly event. Yay for craft in the country! xxx

Four days to go!!!

Only four days until our first market of 2010. The weather forecast is saying a beautiful 29 degrees and the style forecast is saying hot, hot, hot! Above and below are some of the fantastic designs that will be on offer from 10am Saturday. The market has been a sell-out and we have had to start a waiting list. There are lots of new designers, some incredible toy makers, jewellers and textile artists are selling for the first time. And lots of old favourites too of course! We hope you can come along.


Did you see our great write-up in the Ballarat Courier last week? Ooh, don't forget the Daylesford farmers Market is also on this Saturday, and on Sunday the Lake House hosts the annual Regional Producers Day, a huge celebration of the best Victorian produce. Yum! You should definitely make a weekend of it...