The Final Adventures at the Ren Fest: Second Weekend

The second weekend at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival is typically the worst. It’s usually boiling hot, and it usually lines up with the opening weekend of football. Both of which were true this year, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t so bad! I don’t know if I’m seeing it through the rosy glasses of my final season out there or if we actually had a large enough turnout that it made it worthwhile to be out there.

In any case, I still got to meet some astounding new characters this week, as always:

• One man came up to my spinning wheel demo and had the usual audacity to tell me how my spinning wheel works. He told me the wheel needed to be bigger so it could spin faster, like a thousand years of innovation hadn’t thought of that before he did. Rather than point that out, I told him it wouldn’t actually help, as my hands wouldn’t be able to keep up. He said that was for me to figure out…
• An older woman came up to the same demo with disgust all over her face. “Why would you ever want to do this?!” she asked me. She did not stick around for my answer(s).
• Someone about my age came into the booth and picked up a drop spindle. Hedging a bet, and knowing nothing of the odds, they turned to me with such seriousness. “I will only buy this if you teach me how to use it.” They left with that spindle and some roving.
• A little girl came into the booth with her adult. She asked me to “teach her how to sew.” “You already know how to sew. Quit asking people,” was their adult’s exhausted response.
• A college-aged couple walked by my demo. The female-presenting half told her partner I was “adding more stitches so it wouldn’t unravel.” They didn’t stop for me to correct them.
• A young boy walked into the booth only to be dragged out by his adult: “This is a girl’s shop, so not for you,” they said…
• Another couple was watching my spinning demo. “When the economy goes, I’m going to make you do this,” the male-presenting half of this couple said. His partner was not amused.
• “You all weave barefoot!” a woman announced as she walked by Marci’s demo. Like, notably wrong, but in such an interesting way? At most, this woman saw three spinners out at the fair that day. And sure, maybe we all “weave” barefoot (I don’t. I wear socks.), but you’re going to loop a whole group of human beings based on three observances you had this particular day? Wild.

A lot, to be sure. A lot of disappointing encounters, but for every one of those, I was able to have a productive conversation with another guest. All in all, not a bad weekend.

Come on out to Wolf ‘n’ Sheep’s clothing, booth 337, before our final season comes to an end!