Unlike knitting, weaving, or embroidery, crochet items cannot be made by machine. Every stitch in every piece was put there by a person.
Red flags at a market booth
It concerns us when we see a booth full of crochet items that are all exactly identical, and it concerns us more when the same identical items show up at an unrelated vendor’s booth. Those are signals of mass production overseas, often in sweatshop conditions.
- Dozens of pieces with no small variation between them.
- The same item on sale at unrelated booths.
- A vendor who cannot describe how the piece is made.
- Pricing that could not cover the hours the work takes.
Just ask us
There are genuinely fast, skilled crochet artists who can carry a lot of one item, and you can usually tell the difference because they will happily explain their process.
We are often at markets crocheting new pieces while we talk. Ask us anything.
