A Weekend in Lenox

I wasn't certain I was going to apply again for this year's Church on the Hill Craft Show but I'm glad I finally did. Last year was a bad one for weather, traffic and sales.  But I decided to give it another go and was pleasantly surprised that all the bad from last year was good this year.

Two other AWM members were present at the show.  Amy Love was located across the aisle from Aviva of Sieber Designs and her colorful quilts.  


We spent some time comparing notes about how we dealt with the very hilly terrain.  We all had to shim our tables to level them off.  My tent was notched higher in the front than the back to make it look level.  It's a very rough park to set up in.  But being in the center of town we picked up a lot of tourist traffic and the businesses in town were busy too with people who came just for the craft show.

It's been many months since I spoke with Emily of Emily Betti Designs.  We met in Springfield, I think.  She also makes jewelry and has a shop on Etsy.  We chatted a bit and since I could see her booth from mine, I noticed she was having a good weekend too.

Thai Indigo Village had a booth across the aisle from us.  This is a family business located in Northampton.  The weaving is just exquisite.  

I must say though that there were way too many jewelers this year--about every third booth.  In talking to one of the organizers I learned that like lots of other shows they had trouble attracting non jewelry crafters and accepted more jewelers to fill the empty spaces.  And how did all these jewelry vendors do with so much competition?  Well, I learned that  4 of us did well enough to come back again.  As for the rest, I don't know.

For the official review of this craft show, see my side pages.