Erika Kern is not quite Martha Stewart. The 33-year-old from Bakersfield has, however, stitched up cloth portraits of the domestic diva. Kern has also painted, printed and sewn hundreds of patchwork robots and felt log pillows sold for $45 online -- and in the process pieced together a living as a full-time "maker," the Facebook-generation term for do-it-yourselfer.
The economy may be rocky, but the future looks surprisingly plush for Kern and other members of Los Angeles' Felt Club, a tight-knit community of artisans creating handmade decorative objects. The group's annual holiday sale last Sunday drew about 4,500 shoppers who swarmed 144 booths, snapping up cute crocheted critters, stuffed felt cupcakes and notably less cuddly fare, such as handmade soaps shaped like pistols. Most vendors cleared $1,000 with ease.
The event's success is more proof that a simmering movement -- the revival of old-fashioned crafts among the under-40 set -- is only growing stronger.
Some credit goes to the world of high-end interiors, where top contemporary designers such as Marcel Wanders have reinvigorated quaint traditions, creating eye-catching macrame-style chairs and tables that look like crocheted doilies. Other decorative objects employ these methods, along with beading, studding and embroidery.
But clearly consumers' belt-tightening and environmental consciousness also have set the stage for a new form of home economics. As young, cash-strapped shoppers get turned off by overconsumption and disenchanted with homogenized, mass-marketed retail, more are shopping for one-of-a-kind pieces -- or are crafting their own.
"They may not make an afghan like their grandmothers did," said Tina Barseghian, editor of Craft magazine, "but they will take the technique and apply it to their own home."
At Felt Club, that notion applied to Angie Diersman's Devil and Zombie oven mitts, sold for $18 a pop, and her Day of the Dead aprons, $30 each.
Event organizer Jenny Ryan, who crafts under the name Sew Darn Jenny, said her vendor list had doubled since the last Felt Club show in 2007. Applications for the juried show hit 400 this year, and attendance rose 50%.
Jane Morris, a Marina del Rey embroiderer who decorates linens with pre-World War II patterns, recalled the show two years ago when "Felt Club was 12 vendors in the blazing sun," their tables set up in a parking lot behind a comic book store on Hollywood Boulevard. "Take a look at us now," she said Sunday, surveying the bustle inside L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium Expo Center.
