The Bazaar Bizarre provides a showcase for crafty Clevelanders
Shannon Okey dyes yarn through a process that includes her dishwasher. Dying her hand-spun yarn herself allows her to get the exact colors she wants.
In addition to authoring the upcoming Knitgrrl knitting guide, last December Shannon Okey arranged the very first Cleveland Bazaar Bizarre, a craft fair far from the typical church variety. Okey has been involved with Bazaar Bizarre since the very beginning in 2001, when the inaugural Boston show kicked off in a crowded VFW hall.
“It kept growing,” says Okey, who lived in Boston at the time of the first bazaar. “They actually had to move into the YMCA, and there was still a three-block line to get in. One of the original founders moved to L.A., took (the Bazaar Bizarre) with him, and it was hugely popular.”
Once Okey moved back to Cleveland last summer, she realized there was nothing in her hometown resembling the Bazaar Bizarres of Boston and Los Angeles, so she decided to take matters into her own hands.
“I knew there was definitely a crafty community in Ohio that was doing things like this,” Okey says. “So I asked the girls in Boston if I could bring it here, they said, ‘Sure, no problem.’ Word spread fast to the point where I was not taking any more people. We may even have to move to a bigger venue next year.”
The bazaar attracted a vast spectrum of vendors, including the Cleveland and Akron Stitch ‘n Bitch clubs and Kent State-based design group Little Jacket, and featured entertainment provided by belly dancers and a Santa dressed in bondage gear. But Okey was just glad people came.
“It was so great to see people having fun and buying handmade things as opposed to going out to the mall,” she says.
Find out more at www.bazaarbizarre.org.
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