FASHION : Shopping Is a Walk in the Park on the 1st Sunday of the Month : Vests and dresses adorned with lace and sunflowers are among the specialty items offered by artisans at the Ventura bazaar.
If you’re tired of shopping at the malls, how about shopping at the stalls, the ones at First Sunday at the Park in downtown Ventura. You’ll catch a soft ocean breeze, inhale the odor of pita chicken sandwiches and maybe run into old friends. Not to mention the handcrafted clothes and one-of-a-kind treasures you may discover.
“Items you find there you can’t find anywhere else,” said Barbara McCarthy, coordinator of the event for the Ventura Parks and Recreation Department.
Strolling through Plaza Park, I spotted quilted jackets made from jeans, patchwork quilted vests, adult and children’s dresses fashioned out of T-shirts, and tie-dyed everything--from baby clothes to socks.
Nelda Witt, who makes patchwork quilted vests, uses Levi’s, antique buttons, lace from an old wedding gown--whatever anyone gives her. The vests, which run from $30 to $35, are her own design. She takes pictures of them if customers request duplicates but says the vests are practically impossible to reproduce.
“The best seller is the one with Levi’s pockets and the Levi’s tag still attached. They always go first,” said Witt, owner of California Quilting Co. in Camarillo. She usually sells out her stock at First Sunday events. One satisfied customer, whom Witt jokingly calls a “vestoholic,” owns 18 of the vests. Witt also makes earrings and purses out of leftover fabric.
“These people are all artisans. It isn’t as though they have gone out and bought something and just stuck it out there to sell,” Witt said of her fellow vendors.
Over at Mary Duval’s booth, jeans again steal the limelight. She uses regular denim, colored jeans and “whatever I can find on sale” to make quilted jackets. The jackets have pockets and varying designs, such as the popular sunflower pattern. All are washable and cost $85.
Her other items include decorated cardigans made from pullover sweat shirts, with matching T-shirts and his-and-her Western-style denim shirts. Attractive half-stoles to wear over a blouse or T-shirt caught my eye. I bought one, $15, in a Southwest pattern, trimmed in lace, to wear over a plain silk blouse. Duval, from Moreno Valley, plans to return for the July 4 and Christmas street festivals.
Mother-and-daughter dress sets are a specialty of Debbie Pang, a Newbury Park resident who calls her clothes Kin Folks Kollections. Each dress is a T-shirt with a skirt, which come in various patterns, sewn on in gathers at the waist. The T-shirts come in white as well as colors. Adult dresses are ankle-length, with shorter ones in the offing now that the weather is warming up. The style of these comfortable dresses, $35 for adults and $25 for children, is reminiscent of the “Little House on the Prairie” look.
Wandering down the path, I saw toddler bonnets decorated in lace, with sunflower designs and quilts in matching fabrics, all from designer Pamela Gonzalez of Silly Nini.
The riotous swirl of colors at the Peacock Tie Dyes booth dazzled the senses. I’m not sure about the long underwear. The T-shirts and long dresses looked striking, but I stuck with the more conservative sun cap in orange, blue, purple and red. I really did need it for protection from the sun, I told myself.
At the Prescription Earrings booth, Pete Corrall displayed colorful earrings he makes out of discarded optical lenses. “I do plain or exotic, all for under $10,” he said. He’s been producing the earrings for five years and says they are scratch-resistant as well as lightweight. The dolphins and palm trees were especially attractive.
Emese Kowalski creates toaster covers, fabric wallets, fabric jewelry and detachable stoles. Her signed and dated painted eggs are becoming collector’s items. The fabric jewelry is washable.
Getting further away from wearable art, I found Frances Flores’ sun catchers--stained glass, about five or six inches in size, “something you can place on your window to catch the light,” she said, adding that she also does kaleidoscopes, night lights and business-card holders.
Winding up my shopping excursion, I found a first-time vendor to the Sunday event, Ojai resident Randy Shelton, with nephew Kory Thomas, who had polished wooden vases, bowls, candleholders, pens. The wood ranges from Oregon myrtle wood to scraps from a fireplace bin.
“We do the work on a wood lathe,” Shelton said. Some of the pieces are functional and some purely decorative. Other woods he uses are maple, wild lilac root, desert ironwood and zebrawood. He says he’ll make pieces to order and plans to come back next month.
Details
* FYI: Contact Barbara McCarthy, coordinator of First Sunday at the Park, at 658-4742.
