Orange County’s Patchwork Indie Arts & Crafts Festival comes to Long Beach

PHOTO by JENNIE WARREN

Having lugged the cardboard storefront (fashioned from a discarded refrigerator delivery box) to the center of her apartment complex, seven-year-old Yorba Linda resident Nicole Stevenson stepped inside and opened up shop. It was a little cramped in there—and, naturally, it had that distinct, stuffy cardboard smell—but within a matter of moments Stevenson had scored her first sale, handing off a piece of paper she’d decorated with colored pencils—stationery, she insisted—to a neighbor in exchange for a couple nickels.

Meanwhile, just a few miles away in Irvine, Stevenson’s aunt, Delilah Snell—approaching seven-and-a-half, older by mere months—sat dreaming of a coffee shop the two would someday own together: Auntie Niecey’s Waterfall, named for their favorite Jimi Hendrix song.

It was the stuff that childhood memories—and parenthood memories—are made of, not unlike the untold numbers of lemonade stands operating on street corners everywhere after 3 p.m. on any given weekday (earlier on the weekends, of course). But in the cases of Stevenson and Snell, now 33, these were the starting points on a trajectory of small businesses and big dreams that would on a November day in 2007 see Niecey (now a clothing designer and crafter with her own company, Random Nicole) and Auntie (now the owner of Orange County’s first green boutique, the Road Less Traveled) team together to produce the Patchwork Indie Arts & Crafts Festival. Hosting over 30 vendors in the small parking lot behind Snell’s Santa Ana shop, customers cruised the blacktop, purchasing Harveys seatbelt bags that had been stitched on the spot, handmade clothing, handmade crafts and, courtesy of the neighboring Gypsy Den and Memphis Café, handmade food. The pair booked a second fair for the following spring.

On Nov. 15, Patchwork turned two, welcoming over 100 vendors from across the Southland and an estimated 800 shoppers to its fifth event at Snell’s small parking lot (and another one adjacent to it).

“Still high on that Patchwork buzz. What a freaking awesome day!” wrote Long Beach chocolatier and Patchwork vendor Courtney Dudman Donley (of C. Salt Gourmet) afterward on her Facebook page. “I’m usually dusted the day after an event like that. Today, I’m grinning ear to ear!” She’d sold out of nearly all her inventory—but that explained only part of her excitement.

On Sun., Nov. 29, Patchwork will hit the road for the first time, arriving at Long Beach’s Marine Stadium with over 90 scheduled vendors. Which means Dudman Donley will get the chance to do it all over again, hopefully with the same results, and this time—certainly a reason to grin—but a brief mile away from her apartment.

“From the beginning of time people have made things, whether out of necessity or to beautify their lives,” says Stevenson, explaining what she refers to in our conversation as the “philosophy of crafting.” “I think crafting is a combination of both. When you’re making a craft, generally it’s more of a functional piece of art than just something you hang on the wall. [But] I think everything is crafting, just like everything is art. Cooking is a craft, gardening is a craft, gathering people is a craft—putting together Patchwork, in a way, is a craft.”

Indeed, in recent years, we have come to know crafting not just for how it’s generally defined—handmade items—but what it represents: a better marketplace, where consumer and producer interact on an intimate, person-to-person level. As buyers nationwide have found themselves in what’s at best a tricky situation—where large-scale sellers in search of increasingly scant dollars let slip the standards of manufacturing and quality assurance—an entire handmade economy has emerged, fueled by Web sites like etsy.com—which allows customers to connect with crafters one-on-one, exchanging currency via PayPal for goods that are in many cases shipped from a distance that’s less than a day’s drive away—and also the craft fairs that embody them in real life, like Patchwork and Los Angeles’ Felt Club (currently on hiatus).

For many crafters, online and offline sales support one another. “Craft shows are a great selling opportunity for me. I sell way more than I do online,” says Long Beach crafter and Patchwork vendor Lexi Lee, whose Etsy shop, Little Bit, features everything from felt kitty and bear ears to felt dinosaurs, cacti and leaf-shaped hair clips. “But they are also pretty good promotion for my Etsy shop, because nearly everyone that comes to my table takes a card. My online sales never skyrocket or anything after a show, but it’s nice to know lots of people have my card, and maybe sometime soon they will think of someone that really needs a plush dinosaur.”

In turn, the crafting spirit has trickled into local markets as well, refocusing consumers on supporting nearby businesses and keeping their dollars in town. “We have a lot in common with artists and crafters,” says {open} co-owner Sé Reed, who will staff the popular Long Beach bookstore’s booth at Patchwork on Sunday. “We’re all micro-businesses with small-ticket items, and having a platform to share our customers and friends with each other is really valuable. But the thing about Patchwork is that it’s not just a thrown-together mishmash of anyone who wants to pay for a space. [Delilah and Nicole] have a vision of local, independent arts and crafts, and they work with people who share that vision and enforce that vision. I think it really makes a difference.”

“I’ve always been the kind of person who believes that if you want to make a difference in the world, you start with where you live,” says Snell. “I’ve always been involved in making [where I live] a better place and connecting people.”

Since opening the Road Less Traveled in 2006 on just $5,000 in tip money she’d saved from waitressing at the Gypsy Den, Snell has seen her business triple year over year, educating customers all the while about sustainability and the importance of local economies. Everything inside her store—from honey and beeswax products made by Orange County bee rescuers Backyard Bees to gardening and crafting workshops held at the shop—aims to empower consumers and, by extension, the neighborhood.

And not just her neighborhood, either. After hearing from Long Beach children’s clothing designer Angie Rebennack (whose label, the Outfit, does consignment with the Road Less Traveled) that there wouldn’t be a Felt Club this holiday season, Snell thought immediately of Long Beach’s craft scene, which, having no major craft fair of its own, had been a big presence at the Los Angeles fair.

“I said, ‘You know what? I know these vendors are probably hurting in this economy. We should do something in Long Beach,’” says Snell. Shortly after, Rebennack put Snell in touch with Robin Jones of We Love Long Beach, who agreed to co-produce the event.

In the case of vendors like Dudman Donley, it’s a move which can hopefully bring with it the kinds of results she witnessed during the Santa Ana Patchwork and in the days after it, when, for example, she received a call from a woman she’d met at the fair who expressed interest in signing up for an upcoming truffle workshop.

“It was this solidifying of a relationship that was completely from Patchwork,” says Dudman Donley. “Subsidized advertising!”

“That’s exactly what I want with this event,” says Snell: “to support local economies, bring people who live in a certain area together and get them talking and sharing and discussing ideas and revive the area, too!”

In other words, community. It’ll be the one thing offered at Patchwork you can’t stuff in a stocking.

PATCHWORK INDIE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL MARINE STADIUM • LAVERNE AT APPIAN WAY • LONG BEACH 90803 • SUN 11-5PM • PATCHWORKSHOW.COM AND WELOVELB.COM

Tags: delilah snell, Long Beach, Marine Stadium, nicole stevenson, patchwork indie arts and crafts, the road less traveled