"renegade" my ass

My Renegade Craft Fair post has generated enough comment (much of it in person, not on the blog) that I am thinking maybe I'll hold my own craft fair, involving actual crafts.

I think part of the problem with the RCF was that it cost at least $125 to rent a space, which would be prohibitive to someone who makes potholders in their spare time. Maybe I could find some dumpy little church meeting area and offer table space for $15 and we could all eat PB&J sandwiches together.

Incidentally, I make my own refrigerator magnets, often out of beans and interesting beer bottle caps.

make some clothespin people before you choke on your own hipness

I wanted to like the Renegade Craft Fair, but I didn't.

First of all, McCarren Park is a scorchingly hot, treeless hellplain marked by irregular patches of sickly grass. Also, there were no food or drink vendors anywhere in sight, and I did look before sun poisoning forced me back onto the L.

But the real issue: when I attend a craft fair, I want to buy inexpensive, kooky tchotkes from old ladies or dorky-but-hip-in-their-own-way girls who latch-hook or decoupage as a hobby, or to drown the pain of the Golden Girls no longer being in production.

I do not want to buy pricey, ultra-hip shirts and purses and hats made in small batches by DIY "designers" with their own logos and product lines and websites.

Oh, look, it's a felt purse with Rosie the Riveter on it. Oh, look, it's a stuffed tampon with a happy, feminist face on it. Oh, look -- it looks like Jane magazine threw up.

Amy Sedaris is coming to Brooklyn for a craft fair?

Look for me and Megan buying hand-crocheted pasties in the park!

The Renegade Craft Fair is coming to Brooklyn.

Renegade is an independent and unconventional craft fair embracing a D.I.Y aesthetic, which makes it less stodgy and more edgy than traditional arts and crafts festivals.

Brooklyn's fair will host about 150 vendors who will showcase and sell their one-of-a-kind handmade wares, including reconstructed clothing, comics, zines, jewelry, silkscreened gigposters, and more.

McCarren Park, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
10:30a-5p; $free
Continues SUNDAY