SEBASTIAN – Table after table of handmade, homespun arts and crafts have popped up once again at Riverview Park.
Saturday marked the start of the Craft Club of Sebastian’s newest season of wares being offered up for patrons’ perusal.
“We’re hobbyists,” said club president Karen Lampiasi.
The club encourages members to make crafts by hand, she added.
About 50 club members set up their tables around the sidewalk at the park, offering up hand painted lamps, fall and Halloween inspired home décor, quilted purses and aprons, and wood turned bowls and airplanes made of aluminum soda cans, among many other items.
“We’re pretty a decent size” for Sebastian, Lampiasi said. “It’s a way of meeting people.”
For Sebastian resident Marilyn Kraft, a handcrafted bright red cardinal lawn ornament caught her eye. The wings spin as the wind catches them.
She already has a place picked out for it, in her front yard garden – so even when the neighborhood birds don’t come to visit, she’ll still have this one.
“We feed the birds and the squirrels take over, of course,” Kraft said. “There’s nothing you can do about the squirrels.”
Kraft has been a regular at the Craft Club of Sebastian’s monthly shows in the park since 1995, when she and her husband moved to the area from Long Island, N.Y.
“It’s been consistent,” she said of the high-quality arts and crafts the club produces.
A one-time crafter herself, Kraft said she can appreciate the work that goes into the wares.
Though the club typically reserves Riverside Park on the first Saturday of the month, November and January will be exceptions.
The club’s next show will be Nov. 13, due to the Clambake Festival the first weekend of the month. And January’s show will be pushed back, too, because the first Saturday is Jan. 1 – New Year’s Day.
Shows will run from now through May.
For more information about the Craft Club of Sebastian or its monthly shows, call Karen Lampiasi at (772) 388-5244.