On the day of the event, people came. Some drove an hour. A woman named Leila brought an old denim jacket with hand-stitched patches and taught María a stitch María had never seen. A teenager photographed the tote prototypes, then spent an hour helping at the dye table, laughing with customers. The boutique’s buyer showed up, not to inspect metrics but to feel the fabrics and talk about shelf placement. Real conversations formed, slow and sticky, like dye setting into cotton.