Cleveland Craft Coalition bands together for monthly sale of wares Fashion Articles

Cleveland Craft Coalition bands together for monthly sale of wares

Posted by Jorja Rowlandson on August 9, 2010 Leave a comment (0) Go to comments

Special to The Plain Dealer Follow Share this story Story tools Enlarge From left, Clara Sayre, Nicki Schneider, Rhiannon Blahnik, and Kristen Burns make up part of the Cleveland Craft Coalition. The women were chatting at Bela Dubby coffee shop in Lakewood. Seeing a need for informal, inexpensive events where they could sell their wares, a few crafters put a few display tables up at their favorite coffee shop in Lakewood. Its success has led to doing such events every month at Bela Dubby and other sites. Cleveland Craft Coalition’s monthly sale gallery (5 photos)

If the whole do-it-yourself movement is the guiding spirit of any crafter, the Cleveland Craft Coalition has turned it into an art form.

This loosely organized group of knitters, weavers, jewelry makers, photographers and more comes together once a month to sell their work in a freewheeling festival of sorts that definitely isn’t the typical craft fair. While they have ventured from site to site, most often it is the Bela Dubby coffee shop in Lakewood that hosts the CCC’s monthly events.

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“Our goal is to keep it as local as possible, and we try to cram in as many people in there as we can,” says Nicki Schneider, one of the group’s founders. “But the artists have a tiny space each, about 2 feet by 1½ feet. We’re sitting on top of each other! People are sometimes surprised that it’s not like a normal craft show. But once you get past that, it’s a lot of fun.”

What began as a venture among four friends with little pocket money but much in the way of talent routinely attracts well over 100 shoppers during their events, and more than 600 fans on Facebook since its January launch.

“This whole thing has gotten much bigger than what we were expecting,” says Clara Sayre, another founder of the coalition. “We’ve been connecting with so many interesting people; it’s a tremendous amount of fun.”

Sayre and Schneider are neighbors who often got together to work on their crafts. Sayre is a knitter and embroiderer who’s currently learning to weave, and Schneider makes ZombieSocks, delightfully offbeat sock monkeys that are recycled mostly from socks she finds at thrift stores.

They both loved to attend craft fairs in the region but found it prohibitively expensive to purchase table space at them to sell their own wares.

DETAILS

What: The Cleveland Craft Coalition, which meets monthly to sell its handmade wares.

Where: Most often at Bela Dubby coffee shop, 13321 Madison Ave., Lakewood.

When: The first Saturday of every month, usually from noon to 4 p.m., but check Facebook for details.

Contact: facebook.com/clevelandcraftcoalition; clevelandcraftcoalition@gmail.com

“This is strictly a hobby for most of us,” says Sayre, 30. “We couldn’t afford to do things like Bizarre Bazaar, which we would love, or Cain Park or something like that. So we just got some friends together to sell our handmade stuff.”

A few friends with “handmade stuff” has snowballed into a revolving lineup of artists who offer everything from flower hair clips to handmade soap to tattoo flash jewelry to knitted beer cozies. They meet on the first Saturday of each month at Bela Dubby, featuring the work of 10 to 15 artists at each event.

“It’s an oddball, eclectic group of crafters who make very cool things you normally wouldn’t see at a craft show. It’s definitely more edgy,” says Sayre. “We’ve been getting a great mix of people coming in from Lakewood and the surrounding area. Overall, we’ve had nothing but positive feedback.”

The CCC gets the word out about their shows in a refreshingly old-school way, by distributing cool fliers designed by fellow founder Kristen Burns, and new-school methods of frequent updates on Facebook.

The founders (crafter Rhiannon Blahnik completes this powerhouse quartet) each take a share of the duties involved in running a regular event, from organizing the space to marketing and promotion to media relations to the securing of the artist lineup — and providing the occasional vegan barbecue.

“We try to change around vendors every month to be fresh, but there are definitely some who are there each month, as people are starting to come specifically for some artists,” says Sayre, whose knitted bracelets and hair ornaments have a loyal following.

Creating a crafting community of like-minded souls also has been a byproduct of the monthly event, something both Sayre and Schneider say has provided a lot of unexpected joy.

“I really love just getting together with other artists and crafters, people on the same page as I am,” says Schneider, whose ZombieSocks are popping up in local stores such as Salty Not Sweet in the Waterloo Arts District of Cleveland. “I get different ideas and get to learn other methods of doing things, hearing their stories, it’s great. Crafting can be a very solitary thing, and it’s nice to know I’m not the only person out there doing this stuff.”

The CCC plans to keep the events growing in as organic a way as possible. They’ve welcomed opportunities to cross-promote events with other creative groups in the region, and are working to keep the group’s overall prices at a place in which the shoppers are getting a good value but also that adequately reward the crafter for her or his time. ZombieSocks, for instance, are priced between $5 and $35 each.

“We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing,” says Sayre. “We really like how we’re keeping it small and local.”