June Smith’s crochet pieces are for sale at the Art Gallery Osoyoos’ holiday market “Christmas Treasures.” Smith has sold thousands of pieces in Osoyoos alone. (Vanessa Broadbent / Osoyoos Times)

By Vanessa Broadbent

Osoyoos Times

June Smith hasn’t kept count of exactly how many figurines she’s crocheted, but it’s “many, many thousands.”

Dozens of her pieces hang on a Christmas tree in the Art Gallery Osoyoos as part of its “Christmas Treasures” artisan market. She visits often to re-stock the tree.

Each piece is detailed, and on a good day Smith can finish two, depending on how intricate they are. But it’s the detail that makes them sell, she says.

“If you don’t put the detail in, it’s not eye appealing and if it’s not eye appealing nobody’s going to buy it,” Smith said.

Each year she refreshes her designs so shoppers can hang new pieces on their trees.

“I try to always make something a little different so that it can add to their collection.”

It’s been decades since Smith started selling her work, but she was taught to crochet as a child by her mother. Now 81 and living with arthritis, the craft keeps her busy.

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“I can’t walk very far, I can’t stand very long, so I sit. So what am I going to do when I sit? I listen to the TV but I do this,” she said. “For me in my old age it’s my fun.”

A seasonal Osoyoos resident based in Regina for most of the year, Smith works on the pieces year-round and sells them all over Western Canada.

Commissioned Indigenous dolls are sold in Vancouver, and the Ukranian Co-op in Regina also carries cultural dolls.

Locally, her work has been for sale at Nk’Mip Cultural Centre for 12 years. The pieces, mostly aboriginal dolls or animals, sell well with tourists passing through, Smith said.

“They don’t break, they don’t take up much room in the suitcase and they’re not expensive.”

The Nk’Mip Cultral Centre alone has sold over 1,000 of Smith’s pieces.

“It’s amazing, sometimes I just have to shake my head,” she said. “It’s mind boggling how the stuff has just sold for me. I must have a fairy sitting on my shoulder that keeps giving me ideas or finding me customers or something.”

The 2019 Christmas Artisan Market “Christmas Treasures” is at the Art Gallery Osoyoos, located at 8713 Main St., until Dec. 22.