u/EquivalentImpressn

Has anyone else noticed that at the student farmers market there’s always some people that are selling large amounts of (usually either) jewelry or crochet items that don’t appear to be made by the people selling them?
I noticed this last semester when I saw a booth with TONS of miniature crochet toys, which raise a few red flags with me: first, it takes sooo long to make quality crochet goods so the sheer number of them suggests that they were not made by one person; secondly, they have really tight and neat stitching; third, they all reflect some element of pop culture rather than a person’s original creation. The especially cheap prices are also a big giveaway since crochet goods are definitely not cheap (I’m not as familiar with jewelry pricing but same principle should apply).
When you look at other students’ booths with their actual handmade crochet projects, there’s not as many items , there are slight flaws, and they’re usually more personalized and creative.
I suspect that the students setting up these booths are buying them from Shein or Temu or some other cheap Chinese manufacturer, which really rubs me the wrong way because it seems kind of inappropriate for a FARMERS market (implying the things sold are produced by your own work). I also feel weird about people purchasing these items which, if they were mass-manufactured in another country, would likely be made in sweatshops and from slave labor (especially if they’re crochet, since crochet cannot be machine made).
Anyways, I’m just putting this out there to see if anyone else has noticed this; it’s probably not the biggest issue in the grand scheme of things but it has been bugging me recently.

Any beginner tennis players want to hit up the courts sometime? I’ll be here for the summer as well + I have an extra racquet if you need one !