A TIGHTKNIT FAMILY : The Piecemakers is a Christian commune in Costa Mesa, with its roots in the ‘60s but its heart in the Bible. Members operate a country store, a contracting service and craft classes.

To most people, the Piecemakers Country Store is simply a great place to buy traditionally crafted clothes, toys, decorations and gifts. Huge quilts hang in the entrance, and bolts of cloth, patterns and colored thread are available inside.

But to the 40 people who call themselves Piecemakers, the 12,000-square-foot store on Adams Avenue is a manifestation of their single-minded devotion to Christ. They say the success of the store is due to their tightknit religious lifestyle. The Piecemakers live communally in six houses on Swan Drive and Stromboli Road and walk to work together.

“We relinquished everything so that God can own it,” said Marie Kolasinski, 72, who is the acknowledged leader of the group.

Kolasinski said that the group has its roots in the 1960s, when people began congregating at her Costa Mesa home. Originally, she said, it was “hippie” friends of her two sons who stopped by, but eventually more religiously minded people began arriving.

At the Piecemakers Country Store, many shoppers seem unaware that a religious community operates the store.

“I get ideas here--the country look, the country feel,” said Costa Mesa landscaper Annette Campbell. Campbell specializes in country gardens. “It’s really a unique store . . . unlike anything in Southern California.”

One of the attractions for many people who come to the store is the hundreds of classes offered. Last week, Yolanda Wood taught five other women how to make “quillows”--quilts that fold up to create a pillow. The classroom walls were hung with elaborate quilts. Katie Needham, a member of the Piecemakers, was making a child-sized quilt for a friend’s daughter.

The Piecemakers are hosting a Christmas Festival today at the store, with crafts available at 150 booths. Kolasinski said she expected more than 6,000 people from all over the West to attend.

The store’s financial success is what gives the Piecemakers community its freedom. It has grown from a garage quilting shop in 1978 to a bustling center of nostalgia and folk art. Kolasinski said she feels that her group is part of a nationwide movement.

“People are trying to draw close together,” she said. “They are getting less support from the government.”

Each of the Piecemakers receives an allowance and is paid for work at the store. Those who work at the store also get health insurance through a group policy.

Other members of the community work locally as cabinetmakers, bricklayers and tile workers in a contracting service the Piecemakers runs.

Kathy Emil, who lives in one of the communal homes, remembered meeting Kolasinski in 1969 at a Bible study group. The house Emil now shares with seven others looks nothing like the back-to-the-land communes of the ‘60s. It’s an elegant, peaceful home in a neighborhood where the streets wind like tributaries of a vast river. On a worn mat in front of her door, the words “Welcome Friends” are barely readable.

Shivaum Chism, 27, shares the house with Emil and works at the store. “I want to be here forever,” she said, adding that she studied painting at Kansas State University, and now mixes potpourri for wholesale at the Piecemakers’ warehouse.

Emil said the group works together on home repairs and shares the chores. “There’s never any yardwork that’s suddenly facing you,” she said.

The houses along Swan Drive and Stromboli Road are used by whoever comes to live in them. Jasmin Johnson, 3, chewed ice-cubes one day last week as Kolasinski explained how the child became part of the community.

Jasmin was born into the community because her mother, Aime, came to live at the house when she was pregnant, Kolasinski said. Jasmin’s grandmother shopped frequently at the Piecemakers Country Store, Kolasinski said, and so the community offered to give Aime Johnson refuge when she became pregnant. Now Jasmin and her mother both live communally with six others.

“We sort of open our houses to people in need,” Kolasinski said. “Sometimes it turns out bad and sometimes good.”

In Johnson’s case Kolasinski said she was pleased.

The Piecemakers do not proselytize, Kolasinski said, but rather wait for people to come to them. The community takes a relaxed approach to enormous decisions, like whether to leave Costa Mesa for some land they purchased in Colorado. “We’re just waiting on the Lord to see if we go there or stay here,” Kolasinski said. “When you walk with God, you don’t make decisions. He makes them for you.”

There are workers at the store who are not in the religious group but still maintain a strong bind to the Piecemakers community. One of them is Susan Walz, a Huntington Beach resident, who teaches sewing and makes clothes for sale at the store.

Walz said if the Piecemakers ever decided to move to Colorado, “I just might go with them.”