Chinese garlic isn’t very welcome at the world’s biggest garlic
party, but for the second year in a row, delicate, handcrafted
parasols imported from the Orient were the hottest craft item at
the festival.
Gilroy – Chinese garlic isn’t very welcome at the world’s biggest garlic party, but for the second year in a row, delicate, handcrafted parasols imported from the Orient were the hottest craft item at the festival.
Women from two to 92 were spotted around Christmas Hill Park hiding from the high summer sun beneath the elegantly appointed paper umbrellas, which are imported and decorated by Rosie Echelmeier, a Marin County artist.
“We can’t even begin to create a parasol the way they can,” Echelmeier said of the Chinese, who have been crafting parasols supported with intricately designed bamboo spines for centuries. “It’s a fine craft that we’re lucky enough to get at a reasonable price. I haven’t found a made-in-America parasol. If I did, I would buy it.”
The parasols for sale at Echelmeier’s booth were priced from $4 to $35, depending on size and design.
Echelmeier embroiders many of the umbrellas with acrylic paint designs. Each year, she creates a unique garlic festival design. By Sunday morning, the 40 festival umbrellas she made this year were sold out, as were the smaller parasols she makes for children.
Echelmeier said she expected to sell every last parasol by the end of the festival, but didn’t want to divulge just how many she sold, for fear that other vendors will start carrying the umbrellas and take away her business.
Almost all of Echelmeier’s customers were women, though a lot of men bought parasols as a romantic gift or as a special treat for their little girls.
“A lot of daddies by them for their daughters, or husbands by them for their wives,” Echelmeier said. “They don’t seem to fight about the parasols. They look pretty carrying them.”
Sunday morning, 7-year-old Samantha Escalante, of Tulare, was proudly showing off her new parasol in her favorite color of pink.
“It’s cute, it’s pink, and it keeps me cool,” Escalante said while clutching her umbrella and a slushy that she said was “pink” flavored.
Kathleen Caiazzo, of San Antonio, said she bought her parasol because she’s never seen anything like it at home.
“It’s unique,” Caiazzo said,” I can’t get them in San Antonio.”
And while the weekend’s temperatures didn’t approach the punishing heat of previous festivals, it was by no means cool enough to put a crimp in Echelmeier’s business.
“It’s always warm enough,” she said.
