I know, it’s been ages since this happened, but I’ve been busy. I attended the first annual San Francisco Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason last weekend, July 13. My mom and my sis drove all the way up from the boonies of San Jose to attend, and it was a blast. There were so many great booths. It was a nice change from the Maker Faire, whose craft section I thought was supremely disappointing this year. The Renegade definitely had more variety.
I wanted to post about a few of my favorites. I only made one purchase that day, and that was earrings from Orange Slice (their actual website is ShopOrangeSlice.com, but it appears to be having some link issues). This woman is amazing. Her earrings are lazer-cut from wood that has been compressed from multiple layers (not sure what the technical term is for that). They’re flawless, and the design of the earrings I bought (which are not on her etsy store) is very Art Nouveau, which is what attracted me.
Oh, actually I lied. My mom, sis and I each bought a journal from Ex Libris Anonymous. These books are so cool. They are old books that look like they were probably thrown away as a local library was cleaning out their old stock. Then they are torn apart and spiral bound with blank pages interspersed with excerpt pages from the original book. The one I bought had a very simple cover that said, “Don’t grow old, Grow up!” It’s a silly self-help book from way back when. There were a couple of booths that had similar books, and the owner of one of them actually scolded us for buying from El Libris…but his rudeness just made me happier that I bought from Ex.
Some other booths that I really liked were Prix-Prix, who make really great purses, wallets, notebooks, etc. using fabrics like old neckties. Cut+Paste also had a great booth. They’re a collective of a bunch of different artists, and it’s definitely worth checking some of them out. Lastly, I’m really excited about BurdaStyle – Open Source Sewing. This is just an amazing idea – to have people be able to share sewing patterns like they do photos or music online. So you can actually download and print sewing patterns, and a lot of them are free. Check it out.
