Maite de la Torre was not amused by the craft classes. Those first weeks of Covid restrictions soured her character and she felt caged inside the residence Sa Serra, where she lives. They set up those workshops to keep us busy and entertained and I told them that my reading was enough. I felt overwhelmed without being able to go for a walk and do whatever I wanted. But they insisted and so I started”, she recalls.
Little by little, she found an escape outlet with these crafts and, two years later, they have become her great motivation. “Crafts is my passion and I can’t not make things,” she confesses.
Mercat de Nadal de Sant Antoni
Now, De la Torre is one of the craftswomen who has a stall in the tent set up in the Passeig de ses Fonts for the Mercat de Nadal de Sant Antoni. It is the first time she has attended the Mercat de Nadal, but she has already made her debut as a seller of her own products at the market of the fiesta ‘Viu la Primavera’, in this same promenade.
All her products are at very low prices, between two and five euros. On her table she has necklaces and costume jewelry, but her more personal creations stand out above all with the material she collects from the beach and the countryside since she was able to leave the residence for a walk again.
With small stones she forms a doll on a swing or center pieces with rosemary branches. In others she has carefully grouped pumpkin seeds crowned with coffee beans or pistachio shells that remind us of mandalas.
She proudly shows some jewelry boxes, in the shape of a little house, in which she has used dozens of ice cream sticks, until a young woman arrives to greet her and they warmly embrace. It is Gisela Ribas, social and health assistant of the residence Sa Serra.
“It is noticeable that there is an important change when they discover a passion like this. Now Maite always gives things away to everyone at the residence selflessly”, explains Ribas.
While De la Torre is one of the first-timers at the Mercat de Nadal, at the stall in front of hers is that of Jutta Uhl, who has participated in the Mercat de Nadal de Sant Antoni since its first year in 2019. As a craftswoman and neighbor of Sant Antoni, Uhl values the great revival for the winter in the village that this initiative meant. “Until four years ago, there was absolutely nothing, but this fair has been very good and people come with great enthusiasm,” she says.
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