This week quite some handmade boxes have been delivered to customers who are still asking me to make some for them. The boxes and craft shows have taught me so much about fabric, people and this country's culture.  I have so many beautiful memories.... but I will share this one with you:

I think it happened in 2002 or so, when I was still doing many craft shows with my boxes and before it had turned into a fabric business.  I made boxes all year and started selling them during the gift season, which began around the beginning of September and ended the first week of December.

There was a craft show in a highschool in CT for which I had signed up. It was in a super affluent area and I had to book my hotel a little bit out as everything was so expensive closer by. When I arrived, the local basketball team was still practising so vendors couldn't set up at 6 pm, but had to wait until the fire marshall had checked the floor. It wasn't until 8 pm that I could set up my booth, unpacking my van and hauling all the big containers on my simple dolly. If I recall correctly, I drove back to my hotel, got back at 1 am and had to wake up  early to be there by 7 am as the ladies organizing the show had first right to buy before the doors opened to the general public.

Customers here were in a serious gift buying mood for Christmas. Not only were they buying gifts for the immediate family, they also bought for the mailman, the cleaning ladies, the dentist, the teachers, I think for about everyone they knew.  My boxes were very, very affordable to them, starting in those days at $22.50 for the smallest ones.

My booth was 10" x 10". It was a cramped place with 2 tables on each side and me sitting deep in the back, boxed in so to say.  Each table had a folding display with 3 shelves, so there were lots of boxes to choose from. People had to pass all the boxes to get to me and pay.

It was my first time here, I was the new kid on the block and they hadn't seen my boxes before. They made "new" gifts. Customers took 5-6 boxes, some bought 10-15. It was insane. All day there was a line to get into my little space: you had to enter on the right, grab some boxes, and when you wanted some from the left, you had to be in line again. There was no credit card system yet like we have these days. I had this card imprinter that sometimes did, sometimes did not show a visible number on lousy quality carbon paper.  I  still had to ask for customer's phone numbers in case something was wrong. The card didn't get authorized on the spot. So many people lined up, I couldn't accept credit cards this way: they all had to pay cash. The person last in line was telling new customers: "cash only". That by itself was unbelievable to hear for something my hands had made.  Thanks to the help of a volunteer, I was able to go to the car to refill  boxes and have a bathroom break, but otherwise I was sitting in disbelief in the deep end of my booth selling boxes and absorbing this spectacle of wealth. The cash was piling up and I shuffled it behind me, deep under the table.

It was almost at the end of the day, most customers had already left. A customer was kind of looking around at the few boxes I had  left for that day. She was an elderly lady and had trouble walking around with her cane. Sure, she could not have been able to be at the show earlier in her condition. "Can I help you?", I asked. "I need a God box" she said. A God box? Now my boxes are called Box Emotions as I am trying to match with fabric people's interests. I have made boxes with about every animal you can imagine, lighthouses, gardening themes, patriotic,  sports....I have had about every novelty fabric I could find. Then there were some without a theme but in beautiful color combinations. But a God box? What does a God box look like? I'm pretty sure I have never seen a fabric with God depicted on it. Crosses, nativity, that's about it. I asked her what a God Box was and it was clear I had misunderstood her. A God box was not a box with a God fabric. Her husband was an alcoholic and she was in, I assume Christian, therapy. The therapist had advised her to write down her struggles, put it away in a box, and see after a year or so how God had dealt with her concerns. The God box was a way for her to let her emotions out in a safe way and learn to trust how God/time changes things. How she was able to tell me her rather personal situation and still was in need of a box, I don't know.

I felt sorry for the lady. It must be terrible to live with an alcoholic and not be able to deal with that. Suddenly, her eyes saw a small box made out of Paula Nadelstern fabric. It looked like stained glass: black background with lines in bright jewel tones. "That's going to be my God box", she said. And yes, I have to admit, I could see how this fabric reminded  her of the big stained glass windows in a church. "I can't carry it myself. I will come back tomorrow with my son, and he will get it for me".

The next day, with my small, but entire leftover inventory in that school gym,  she came back with her son. "We're here to pick up my God box, how much do I owe you?" " Nothing", I said, "this is your God box indeed and God has taken care of it".  God had indeed. When I later drove back home with not a single box left,  I remember it being close to 8 pm when I saw the Empire State Building on my left.  The magic of the lights of New York City. The entire weekend had been just unbelievable. My cash was on my belly and pushing against the steering wheel. If the police would have stopped me,  I'm sure I would have looked like a drug dealer....I arrived at home, close to 2 am. My husband turned around in his sleep and told me he was happy I got home. The next day I woke up to get the children to school, but after an hour or so I was so exhausted, I went straight to bed and slept all day..This show had worn me out, everything had been in an overdrive.

In my memory this weekend is still a blur.  So many sales! Later, in my fabric business,   I sold hundreds of yards of Paula Nadelstern fabric in my Houston booth. I ordered her latest collection many times and cut it very last minute (sometimes in Houston in my hotel room) in yards, half yards and bundles. It was brand new and nobody had seen the line yet, but the Houston crowd is an educated crowd and they know what they want. Paula was always upstairs giving classes....

There even was a year when Paula herself came down from the classes and explained to all the customers her intricate designs and how they made kaleidoscope quilts. I had put her latest collection on a prime corner in my big 20" x 30" booth. There was a line in Houston for her fabric and I, sitting on the other corner at the register, could see from the far edge of my eyes, Paula doing her magic. I'm positive I saw the God Box again.

Paula has been designing fabrics for Benartex for over  25 years and the picture here is her latest collection Needle Stars, coming out next year.