Aside from Halloween, there are really only two things I like about fall: football and festivals. I can root for Georgia Tech on Saturdays, the Falcons on Sundays, and still find time in between to spend a lazy hour or three wandering through a craft fair a week.
I recently kicked off the season in Stone Mountain at the Yellow Daisy Festival. It’s the IMAX of craft fairs – you have to back up a half mile just to see the edges of it. From buckwheat to baskets, pottery to paintings, soap to soup mix, you’ll find it there.
I genuinely admire the creativity and craftsmanship that goes into making all of those items, whether it’s a painted palm tree plaque announcing that “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere” or it’s handcrafted jewelry that you could only wear to an after-five dinner party. Tacky is in the eye of the beholder.
I always visit these festivals under the pretense of Christmas shopping early, but that premise quickly goes out the window. I bet if you ask almost any woman there you’d hear the same thing. “Of course, holiday shopping,” wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Not that our husbands believed us anyway.
Large or small, art festivals have a certain etiquette for maneuvering in small spaces, examining the merchandise and jockeying for position if the gal next to you is eyeing the same necklace.
Navigating the crowds would be much easier if there were separate lanes for pedestrians and strollers. I fully sympathize with anyone trying to steer a toddler through narrow paths, but some parents fail to notice that little Nathan is parked smack in front of the scarves and is using them to wipe the funnel cake sugar off his hands. It’s a wonder the folks selling glass and pottery don’t fence themselves in with rubber bumpers.
Closer to home, I enjoyed the Shakerag Festival in Peachtree City last weekend, which is the logistical opposite of Yellow Daisy. Everyone gathers not on a mountain but a knoll, and you can pretty much stand at one booth and see all the others from the same spot. But unlike the farther-flung festivals, you’ll likely see a neighbor either selling or buying, and if you forgot your checkbook in your car, the crafter will hold something for you while you retrieve it.
Fayette festivals also lend themselves to more targeted marketing. The woman who cleverly billed her crocheted blankets as “golf cart lap covers” knew her audience well.
So this weekend I’m off to Tyrone Founders Day, and the Cotton Pickin’ Fair in Gay isn’t far off.
I might be a little lower in the discretionary spending budget by then, but give me a cold cup of fresh-squeezed lemonade and a brownie baked by someone’s grandma, and I’ll be checking out those embroidered tissue box covers whether I need one or not.
Jill Howard Church has lived in Fayette County since 1994. Reach her at jillptcblog@aol.com.
About the Author
