Who knew silk could walk off on its own?

Well, I think I took another step forward in being a maker of desirable pretties. In a backhanded sort of way. It goes like this...

A few weeks ago, I took my hand painted silk scarves and ties into work for the students to look at. And soon after that, I had the scarves and ties on display at the concert my singing group gave. They were on a table in the back of the room, while I sang with the group in the front. (You see where this is going?) There was a big sign with them, giving the prices, mentioning that a portion of each sale went to benefit Celtica!, and giving my contact information.

Fast forward to last night. One of my scarves sold through my Etsy shop. ( www.tangibledaydreams.etsy.com ) This morning I went to package the scarf up...and it wasn't in the bag with the rest of my inventory. I tore my studio apart, thinking I had misplaced it (and collapsed my craft table on top of me in the process--but that is another story). It was nowhere to be found. I was late to work at this point, so off I went.

There is a lot of time to think and mull things over when you are a life drawing model. I worked two classes, which means 6 hours (more or less) of pondering. When I came back home, I followed a hunch and checked the inventory in my bag of goodies against the inventory in my Etsy store. Sure enough, in addition to the one scarf, there was a second scarf missing (different size, but same color scheme) as well as one of the ties. Yup. Somewhere along the line, I had gotten shoplifted.

This is the first theft of my hand made items. In a very back handed way, I feel more legitimate now. Frustrated, absolutely. But like I passed a rite of passage. I tell you what though, next time I'm not leaving my goods at the other side of the room, even for an instant!

I made things right with last night's customer, thank goodness. I refunded her money, and will be sending her second choice scarf to her free of charge. I hated having to tell her that the scarf she bought had already found feet and walked off on its own. She was very understanding, so all is good there.

I hope whomever has my scarves and tie enjoys them. No, really. I'd like my work to be treasured.

But I'm a little disappointed in human kind at the moment.