Edgewater residents show they’re pretty crafty

EDGEWATER — Talented artists and crafters around Edgewater ply their skills year-round, sometimes purely for the joy of the creation. But when they can share the results of their labors with appreciative consumers, it’s frosting on the cake.

Now, as Edgewater’s fourth annual Pretty Crafty expo and sale arrives, gifted hands wielding paintbrushes, sewing needles, looms, hammers, and saws are busy throughout the community as residents turn out products sure to delight everyone who appreciates unique, quality items.

Nearly 30 artists and crafters from Edgewater and beyond will sell their work at the Sept. 21 event from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Creekside Lodge. The wide variety of offerings includes holiday ornaments, colorful tins, needlecraft, paintings, clothing items and accessories, wood carvings and toys, decorative bottles, herbal products and food mixes, pet items, and photography.

Edgewater’s Diane Dilbert has been preparing knitted, woven, crocheted, and fabric items for the show.

“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” she explained, noting that she sewed both her own and her kids’ clothing for years. “I love this work, and now I have the time. It’s like my retirement job.”

Diane’s products include a colorful array of wraparound-length scarves, some knitted with decorative pom-pom trims, some intricately loom-woven, and some created of sheer fabrics. She cites the quality of the Pretty Crafty show as the reason she’s participating again this year. She will also be selling “Pepper The Elf,” the children’s book she authored and illustrated along with a matching elf hand puppet.

Her additional items include stuffed fabric Nativities, purses, aprons, pot holders, and desk cozies — small cloth “slipcovers” that cleverly fit over a coffee cup and offer pockets for pens and other miscellany.

Armed with table, band, and jigsaws in his garage workshop, Carl Shoufer is readying his woodcraft for the sale. Using pine, a variety of patterns, and colorful paints, he creates handsome items for children. His wood scooters and rocking horses, dinosaurs, floppy-eared dogs, and motorcycles are consumer favorites. His bubble-gum dispensers and animal-shaped banks feature see-through panels that let kids watch their coins grow and their candy diminish.

Carl’s products for adults include home décor items like holiday reindeer, Nativities, and bird-shaped lawn ornaments with wings that spin.
“It’s relaxing,” he said of the hobby he began 35 years ago.

After crafting items for seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, he expanded to offer products at numerous area venues, but now chiefly shows at Edgewater.

Ginger Duzet, who has enjoyed photography as a hobby for many years, started out using a simple Brownie box camera. Her stunning visual imagery is now captured with a Coolpix digital, and she prints her pictures herself. Some of her Edgewater-location photos include jewel-toned butterflies, gorgeous blossoms, bright goldfinches, egrets, herons, and spectacular sunsets. She also offers striking images of scenic places she’s photographed on her travels.

“Wherever I go,” she says, “I’m always looking for the picture.”

Ginger mounts her photos on high-quality stationery stock, making her elegant cards a pleasure to give and receive. She offers her photo note cards under the name “Ginger’s Snaps.”

Ruth Silverman will sell a variety of knitted and crocheted items to benefit the Share the Warmth Organization. This group, which she helped originate, is mainly comprised of senior lady volunteers who had “out-knitted” and “out-crocheted” everything their friends and families could ever use.

Now they create colorful baby hats, flower-shaped potholders, eyeglasses cases, hand towels with crocheted tops, and more to raise funds for a very worthy purpose: purchasing fabric to be made into small personal blankets used by chemotherapy patients treated at the University of Chicago hospital.
Ruth scours area fabric stores to obtain fleece on sale in colors and patterns suitable for both men and women, and then the blankets are crochet-edged by her team of volunteers. Each blanket is given free of charge with a note to the patient stating that it’s meant to “surround you with comfort and love.”

“It means so much to them,” Ruth said, and she has the heartfelt thank-you notes to prove it. If sales of the group’s hand-made items prove successful, they hope to donate blankets to chemo patients being treated in the Fox Valley.

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