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Artisans sell handmade goods for Christmas shoppers

Artisans sell handmade goods for Christmas shoppers

Allison Piracci offered Harris tweed items for sale.

Patrick L. Sullivan

SALISBURY — Christmas shoppers crowded into the White Hart Saturday, Dec. 14, for the second of two sales events from Salisbury Handmade.

Charlie and Margie Vail completed their shopping lists with a certain air of satisfaction. The last items checked off were key fobs (for the grandchildren) from Allison Piracci of Solulu Handmade of Niskayuna, New York.

Piracci’s main stock in trade are handbags and other items made from authentic Harris tweed.

She said the Harris tweed authorities guard their trademark carefully, and only after jumping through a number of hoops do the authorities send her the authentic Harris tweed labels, with the distinctive orb. The labels must be sewn on any item that uses Harris tweed.

Patrick L. Sullivan
Senior Reporter
Patrick Sullivan has been a reporter for The Lakeville Journal since 2004, covering everything from town meetings to local characters and the outdoors. He grew up in Northern Virginia but spent summers on Mount Riga in Salisbury, giving him a lifelong connection to the Northwest Corner. A graduate of Denison University, Patrick is also the author of Tangled Lines, the newspapers’ popular fly-fishing column—making The Lakeville Journal, as far as anyone knows, the only newspaper in Connecticut with a regular fly-fishing columnist. He once received a fan letter from England, which he considers sufficient evidence that his work has achieved international acclaim.
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