Swap Meet (Busiest Weekend Part 3)

I went to Yasmina's Bellydance Swap Meet to try to sell my jewelry. On that count, I was not very successful. I made one sale of three items... to a non-dancer who decided to see what was going on with all those tents at the women's center. But that's OK. It helped me make some definite decisions about what I'm doing with my jewelry this year.

Aside from the whole "sitting there all day not selling jewelry" aspect, the swap meet was great. I took a fan veil workshop from Yasmina and also bought myself a pair of fan veils from her (the nice thing was that she had loaner pairs for people who wanted to try it without investing in the prop, but I knew already that I wanted them). I'm pretty excited about fan veils and am already working to use them to "Crooked Muse" as opposed to the traditional veil I have been using.

I also had a nice time talking with people all day. My booth neighbor was Dawn Z who does silk dying (she made my above-mentioned veil) and is just a really sweet woman. We helped each other set up our pop-up canopies because that is never a one-woman job! I saw a lot of other Phoenix-area dance friends that I hadn't seen in a while, and Jess Walker from here in Tucson was up to teach a workshop and spent some time at my booth chatting with Jolie and I.

Oh, and of course I shopped. I was going to not buy things if my sales didn't go well, but that didn't really last. After being so good at the Desert Shakedown, I couldn't resist finally buying some new costuming! I got a great little overskirt and tie-top from Gail aka Rukshana, and I scored a really sweet pair of never-worn batik-dyed real Melodia pants (not those cheap rip-offs) for a ridiculously low price. They fit me like a dream! People were watching me check them out in the mirror and telling me to buy them from halfway across the event, so of course I had to give in to peer pressure.

I will not be returning to the swap meet as a vendor (unless it's to share a booth with a friend to clean out our dance closets), but I will definitely come back for workshops and shopping! It's a great event to learn new skills, see friends, and pick up costuming.