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There have been “other lessons learned” over this past weekend as I reflect on our time at the Vintage Bazaar in Eliot ME. Visit their website here.
Connie Fletcher of Seven Gables and I did our first show/market together. I talked a bit about it in my last post about the preparations. Not only is it physically tiring but for an introvert like myself it can be mentally tiring as well. I am proud to say that I rose to the occasion and talked to tons of lovely people- both other vendors and customers. Our vendor neighbors were very helpful to the newbies and helped answer questions and offered advice and kind words. How nice was that?! To our left were two sisters who sell repurposed furniture and signs, to our right was a young woman who sells jewelry made with animal bones (who knew?). She was quite popular.
There was an absolute flurry of trucks, vans, uhauls, trailers and cars parked in the aisles by the set up booths on Friday – even with the stresses of unloading all of the mechanize and setting up tents, everyone couldn’t have been any nicer- “could you please move your truck just a little bit” “oh thanks, that’s great” “am I in your way?” “no, not a problem, I’ll wait” and on and on. Lesson learned there is – people ARE in fact generally nice despite what we see in the news!
Tomato tarts from Chase’s Daily
Our food journey, which is very important to both Connie and myself , started with Connie getting tomato tarts at Chase’s Daily in Belfast ME.http://www.chasesdaily.me We enjoyed those on our trip down. Delicious treat. Thanks Connie! If you haven’t been there yet, well, you should, it’s that good. More about our food adventures as you read on…
We were a bit like Laurel and Hardy while putting up our tent, but got it up and were off and running with the set up. Not bad for first timers- we wished we had taken a video of that! We had a vague idea of how we were going to arrange our items so that went quite smoothly.
After losing the light of the day- we called it quits and headed to Kennebunkport for dinner. I remembered Allison’s restaurant so we drove to Dock Square and found parking. http://www.alissons.com/ We had the freshest haddock sandwiches we have ever eaten- they were fabulous. It is not the Allison’s that I remembered from 20 years ago- it is more of a pub/bar now so it was pretty noisy but people were all having fun and ,like I said ,the food was excellent.
Mittens the cat
My husband’s cousin was kind enough to let us stay at their house in Biddeford Pool for 2 nights so we wouldn’t have to pay for lodging. I was welcomed by their cat who was wondering why “I” was in his room- but decided to let me sleep with him as he rubbed his head on mine. Very sweet. It was late so we went right to bed since we had to be out of the house before 6.
Collage of booth photos
Day one was a glorious day- not exactly the crisp fall day we had hoped for, but it was warm and sunny. Other lessons learned that day were that we needed to educate people about rug hooking and that it is not, in fact, a dying art, but one that is seeing a resurgence today as people continue to revisit heritage crafts. Connie and I helped educate people- everyone was very pleasant and complimentary but still didn’t really grasp why the things needed to be priced as they were. That’s OK, now they know, since several of them sat down as Connie gave them a lesson on how to hook. We talked about the hand dyed wools and linen backing that is involved in each individual rug and why it is important to use quality materials so you will have a lasting heirloom piece. We learned and they also learned- it was all good. A food truck vendor came around offering to bring us lunch so we wouldn’t have to leave our booth- that was awesome- we ordered some lentil hand-pies and water and she brought them right over to us- so yummy! I wish I could remember their name so I could post a link to their site- sorry, it was hectic, and I wasn’t thinking about their the name at that moment- just happy to get some great food delivered in person. Yea!
Sister on the Fly https://www.sistersonthefly.com/ had set up camp in one corner of the field- those campers…ooh- I need to get a trailer hitch on my car! They were so great and the women looked like they were having a ball together. You should check them out. Now that may be on my bucket list…
thai ginger noodles
On to another food favorite- we went to The Green Elephant http://greenelephantmaine.com in Portsmouth NH- wow, it was spectacular!!! I am , for the most part, vegetarian and they are a vegetarian only restaurant so I was delighted. The samosas were to die for! We were so hungry that we neglected to take a photo of those, but here is a photo of my Thai ginger noodles- yummy!
Belly’s full- we headed back to Biddeford Pool and I put some finishing touches on some needle felted acorns that I worked on during the day and we were off to bed .
Bill, Ellen and Eliza
Sunday- our hopes were high that more people out would venture out for the day. We did have some familiar visitors- my son, my future daughter in law and her sister were happy sights for me. Thanks for supporting my venture you guys!
We did speak to a lot of people again and shared our future sailing adventure with some hookers who we thought might be interested in joining us next September. WE were tired, hot (yes isn’t it supposed to be cool in Oct??) and shared lots of stories with customers. We learned lots of their stories as well. “My grandmother used to hook” , “my grandmother bought me a kit when I was younger” ,etc. They sat down at the frame and pulled some loops and the smiles came. “Other lessons learned?” people like to tell their stories to strangers, people like to learn something new, people like to dream about doing this or that “someday”. Well- the time is now because you never can tell what “someday ” might bring.
Dog loving riding in his doggie backpack
It was time to pack up- we said our goodbyes to our weekend neighbors, splashed the rain water off of our tent top and loaded up the uhaul again. We headed north- on our way home. It was @ 10:30 when we reached my house- uhaul trailer still in tow of course. As Connie tried to maneuver up our driveway our seasonal neighbor came across the road to see who this stranger was that was trying to back up to our house. I was so thankful that he was looking out for our home and after he realized who was in the truck I asked if he would like to try to back the haul up the driveway- he was SO NICE and did. What a relief for Connie. Another lesson learned and good feelings all around with the kindness that people showed us all weekend long.
Hooked pumpkins for sale
Watch for our next adventures- not sure what it might be, but I’ll let you know!