ginapina

Walking through Canton Trade Days is like walking through an interactive history museum. There you will find hundreds of anything and everything ever made since the 1800s for sale, from guns & ammo to crocheted doilies. I took a road trip this weekend and checked it out for the first time and was completely blown away. So much so that I had to go back for a second day. There is so much ground to cover and so many vendors that even after 2 full days I didn’t come close to walking around half of it.

It is somewhat organised chaos. I would occasionally ask some people if they had seen any vintage fabric dealers and would get pointed in any and every direction. The organizers did a pretty good job of keeping handmade crafts, resellers & boutiques in the covered walkways and the antiques and other junk in the “yards”. The yards are where I spent most of my time; pouring over jam packed tables. Some of the boutiques were very big and nice with all kinds of antique furniture. I also came across a farmhouse that really was like a living museum of 1800s Texas with all of the old tools and daily life what nots. Time travel may not be possible, but for the right amount of money you could buy everything there and set it up 30 miles south near a corn field and at least FEEL like you have traveled through time.

I imagine the vintage vendors had to pay extra to be in the air conditioned Civic Center. They had much more neat put together displays of collectibles and definitely ‘knew what they had’ price wise. In the Civic Center is where I met the couple selling 78rpm records and gramophones. I had never actually heard a gramophone being played! I have to say they sound magical especially since no electricity is involved. They are also so loud that this must be where the term “crank it up!” comes from. They had shoved a tea towel in the horn of one saying that they get complaints about how loud they are.

I was on the hunt for vintage textiles and while I didn’t find much raw fabric apart from a few entire bolts I did find thousands of beautiful tea towels and tons of handmade vintage quilts priced mostly under $50! My absolute favorite vendor was inside the Civic Center and had hotel laundry sized bins FULL of amazing finds. Lovingly sorted out by “theme” (calendar towels, embroidered kittens, hankies, etc). It is completely over whelming to see tables full of quilts for $10 or so and not just want to have them all. There is a bit of heart ache involved is seeing so much handiwork piled up and sold. I found a bin of half completed cathedral window quilt blocks that had already seen hours of hand sewing done, only to be half finished and discarded. I couldn’t help but think of how many hours upon hours it took to crochet and embroider and quilt all of this. I took mostly pictures the first day and when I got home I was kicking myself for some of the lovely stuff that I left behind.

I found a great vendor who was selling only old Singers and we talked for a long time over what great machines they are. He had some super old ones with hand cranks and tons of feet and manuals. None of the machines were pristine, but were all in working order with cases and amazingly cheap ~$50. Speaking of amazing I managed to NOT buy one! I also resisted rescuing one from another thoughtless vendor who had a chrome wheeled beauty sitting in the sand and priced at $17. Such deals are why the #1 seller at Canton is the fold-able market cart with wheels that comes with a square tarp bag. Almost every single person there had either one of these carts or their own type of cart or slave to haul around goodies. I noticed some Pros taking a break at the baked potato stand that each had their own cart and handmade quilted cart liners.