Can You Dig It?

My sister, mother, and I have been excitedly working for months preparing for our craft fair booth.  We had so much fun making designing and producing our products over the past few months.  We named our booth Motley Fridays, after the two cats, Motley and Friday, that we had for 18 years when Casey and I were growing up.

Early Saturday morning, we noticed that some people would glance at us and walk right past our booth.  It was kind of strange.  I got up to walk around and see what was up, and after seeing our booth in the context of the other booths around us –hair bows, yard signs, Tupperware- it was clear that we were the hippies.

Fabulous hats knit by my sister!

A veritable orgy of Moomsters, the amazing monster dolls made by my mother!

Baby quilts, which could have been priced for $5 and would not have sold, because people did not look at them!  (Shout out to Kate, who made the two white quilts.)

Once we realized that we were being seen as hairy legged tree huggers (and I had shaved my legs the day before- come on!) who would dare try to sell something like tea towels, we realized that we weren’t really going to sell anything.  Even if we weren’t fitting in, we were being viewed accurately – we love trees.  I made some of my items out of vintage and/or recycled material.  That gave up the freedom to relax and spend the day people watching and making small talk with the people who did visit our booth.

After I came back from my stroll and reported to Casey that we were the hippies, she looked around, burst out laughing and said, “Oh my God, your Advent calendars!”

I made them and it may sound cocky, but damn, I love those Advent calendars.  If they aren’t the style of our customers, well, okay.  I still love them.

Then I looked at Casey and said, “You’re eating seeds!”

It’s things that are totally normal, like eating a delicious mix of cayenne pepper toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds, that will make you a complete werido in the wrong crowd.  What are you going to do?  Basic life lesson:  Be Yourself.

I had been to this craft fair previously, so I’m a little surprised that I misjudged the crowd so effectively, but I guess things change year to year. And people weren’t spending money; they would try on hats and rave, then walk away. Kids would hug and squeeze and beg for Moomsters, and parents would say no. From what we saw, I don’t think anyone bought very much at the whole sale, so it wasn’t just us.  In the end we all sold a few things, at least earning back the cost of our booth.  And the people who purchased items will hopefully be very pleased with their products.

But also, it was us. I’m not at all ashamed. We’re still proud of the things we made and we wouldn’t have made anything differently. We couldn’t have made anything differently. If you’re not using a pattern, you’re making what’s inside you and you can’t fake that.

Our only regret is that when we loaded up at the end of the day, we didn’t drive away in an old VW van.