Goodness, there are a ton! Who knew? Upcoming bazaars and craft fairs.

One of the things that we were really looking forward to when we moved here was visiting the Renegade Craft Fair. Unfortunately, last year’s fair was held during a huge huge storm - Hurricane Ike to be specific. There was no way we were going to drag the little kids to Wicker Park in a hurricane… and then our basement flooded and so we missed it.

We did go to the Winter Holiday version at Pulaski Field House and some of us enjoyed it quite a bit (one guess as to which little kid did not enjoy it at all…)

So this year, I have been pretty anal about making sure we did not miss it. Unfortunately I forgot to mention it to TW and I sort of sprung it on her yesterday morning. Oops. After she recovered from the shock of hearing that we were going, she got her mother ready and into the car and we headed into town.

No traffic on the freeway but it took forever to find a place to park. And that place to park was blocks and blocks from the fair. TW pushed her mother’s wheelchair a very very long way but it was worth it.

Honestly, we’re a little sick of most craft fairs. They always seem to have the same things over and over again. The Renegade Craft Fair is totally different. Or maybe it’s just that the vendors sell really cool stuff. Really cool stuff that all of our kids would like.

We came home with presents for a bunch of the kids and I even found a Christmas gift for my father.

I totally missed the opening day of Randolph Street Market and am disappointed. It’s only open on the last weekend of each month, from May - September. That doesn’t give us a lot of opportunities for fun antique shopping, particularly with the July dates being during BlogHer and the August dates being during TW’s birthday weekend.

I went ahead and purchased the season pass, hopeful that the valet parking and the admission to the extra events would make it worth it. We shall see.

We bought just a few things during our first visit. TW’s mom bought an aluminum cake holder (no idea why she did this but she did.) I bought a shirt for Michelle, for Christmas. TW bought cool retro pattern potholders.

We were tempted by some retro kitchen tables and chairs, a retro desk, some really fantastic wood furniture that would have solved all of our kitchen problems but won’t work now due to the wheelchair needs of TW’s mom.

Also tempted by huge neon signs, old toys from our childhood, and lots of other antiquey goodness that we do not NEED.

Chicago has been celebrating PRIDE all month but it’s this weekend that is the big one. The street festival was Friday and Saturday, the PRIDE parade is Sunday. We couldn’t attend both the festival and the parade, we have too much to do and too little time. So, we decided we’d just do the street festival this year.

I think we made the wrong choice.

The festival wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t worth as long drive or the $14 parking. The community vendors were good, friendly and giving away lots of freebies. The merch was slim and not nearly as interesting as other PRIDE festivals we’ve been to. There was a heck of a lot of food and had we been in the mood to eat, we’d have appreciated it. There was even more alcohol and that’s not our thing.

The biggest difference between the festival in big city Chicago and small town Gainesville… Chicago has lots of pretty woman and pretty men all who had better haircuts than those in Gainesville.

Next year we’ll do the parade and wander around Halsted and Belmont for the window shopping and people watching.

We’ve had one hell of a great book weekend. First Little City Used Book Sale and then Printers Row Lit Fest. I’m just about as “booked” out as I can be!

We spent a wee bit of time wandering around the Harold Washington Library, and enjoyed the visit but we’ll need to go back so that we can see more than just the escalators, the multi purpose room and the children’s room.

We were in the library because I snagged tickets to the Robert Rodi event (who was joined by Amy Sutherland and Jen Lancaster moderating.) When I grabbed the tickets, I grabbed them because we really like Rodi. I didn’t even bother to see who Amy Sutherland was - turns out she’s the woman who wrote Kicked, Bitten & Scratched - a book we really liked. We didn’t love this panel but we didn’t hate it either. All of that focus on the new non-fiction book by Rodi, which makes sense I guess since Sutherland’s most recent books are animal-ish books. It was interesting and I got Rodi’s book, When You Were Me, signed so that was fun.

Now about the Printers Row Litfest spectacular. OMG the books. That’s just all I can say. The books. The books. The freaking BOOKS. Must save money in preparation for next year’s event. Must also bring more canvas bags and someone to carry full bags because, people, books are heavy!

We had so much damn fun wandering around the tents, chatting with authors, fondling books, buying books, drooling over books. Did I mention THE BOOKS?????

I have always wanted to go to a Renegade Craft Fair. Moving to Chicago made that possible. Except, when the fair was scheduled in September, a hurricane hit and the entire area was flooded (including our basement) and so we did not go. The Renegade Craft Fair is cool but not cool enough to attend outside during that kind of weather.

When TW told me that there was a Renegade Craft Fair HOLIDAY Sale at Pulaski Park ie INDOORS, I was totally up for it.

Unfortunately, it’s freezing and there’s no parking around Pulaski Park. Bah. This is what I really hate about living here. I don’t mind walking 10 blocks but 10 blocks in freezing wind just plain stinks.

The field house itself is pretty interesting and I think a good location for such a craft fair. Rooms that aren’t too big or too small and are spread out enough that there aren’t a lot of bottle necks as people move from one room to another.

We stopped just inside the door and looked at the “official” tshirts and then talked to the woman at the Yelp table and got a free Yelp back, which was nice since we forgot to bring a bag.

And then we entered the first room. Oh my. So many cool things. It’s been a very long while since I’ve found so many things that I wanted to buy (or try to make) at a craft fair. TW and I collected a lot of cards so that we can explore the artist’s websites (and actually buy stuff once we have money again.) Liz also collected some cards and spent a lot of time trying to decide which vendor she liked the best. She’s quite the discriminating shopper, who knew?

Here are some links from the cards I collected at the fair.

The Renegade Craft Fair rocks.