Church Fairs Aren’t All Sunshine And Rainbows

My mother was known for the perfection and beauty of her knitted and crocheted items. She always made a couple of afghans or sweaters for the church to sell at their fairs.  

One year, a committee member approached and asked if she would make an afghan for the raffle. Mom agreed and went out to get new yarn. Those of you who knit know that yarn is not cheap and that making something beautiful and perfect takes time.

Mom created a lovely afghan: it had many rainbow squares surrounded and bordered in white. I would estimate that there was $75 worth of yarn — this was in the 1980s, so probably more today — in it, and it took her several weeks of working nights to put it together. She presented it in a nice wrap with a ribbon. All the church ladies oohed and aahed.

When I was home from my job that weekend, we went to the fair to see what was going on. We went over to the raffle table and there was… a grey and brown afghan draped over a chair and showing every dropped stitch and every oversized loop. Mom and I stared at it and then at each other.

The woman running the raffle turned to Mom and shook her head.

“I wish they had asked you to donate an afghan,” she said, “because no one wants this one.”

“I did donate an afghan,” Mom replied, and she described it in detail.

The raffle lady shook her head. “Haven’t seen it.”

Mom and I began to search the fair and finally found her afghan at the knitted items table. Or rather, behind it, hidden under several other items. The plastic wrap was removed and the ribbon was gone and it was all bunched up in a heap with a price tag of $10.  

“Oh, no,” said Mom. “That isn’t happening.”

She took the afghan and said to the knit items table lady, “I hope you don’t mind, but there is more than $75 worth of yarn in here and over a month of evenings spent working on this. This was requested for the raffle. And I found it hidden under a bunch of other items with its packaging missing.”

The table lady looked like a deer in the headlights.

“So,” continued Mom, “since you don’t think it’s worth enough to even put out on display, I will take it back and give it to someone who will enjoy it.”

“Oh, but… um—” was all the woman got out before Mom walked off with me following behind. To be honest, I had no idea what was going on because at the time, I wasn’t much of a crafter and, being a self-centered twenty-something, I was thinking, “Why is she so upset? They’re selling it, aren’t they?”

She found the person who ran the fair, told them what had happened, refused to let the item be put up for the raffle and, with the organizer’s blessing, took the afghan out to the car.

It turned out, as we learned from the organizer later, one of the ladies had snatched Mom’s afghan away and substituted the other. She was hiding it with the low price tag because, yup, she was planning on buying it herself.

When my cousin got married the next year, he and his bride received several presents from my side of the family, including a rainbow afghan bordered in soft white yarn. They still have it.