Revisiting the role of generations past, Gwen Barba travels to Santa Monica to witness, first hand, the return of the craft.

Calling all Crafters! Neatly tucked away in a courtyard on Main Street in Santa Monica, The Urban Craft Center is a studio space/retail store, offering limitless access to crafting tools and equipment as well as creative classes and workshops. It had me at hello.

More specifically, it had me at the front counter, where bolts of fabric line up like oversized books in an eclectic rainbow of patterns and colors. By the time I reached the studio space, with its open shelves of sewing machines, embroidery hoops, and rubber stamps, my mind was spinning with potential projects. I could see the parts and pieces spread out on the clean open work tables. I imagined referring to a vintage how-to book in the library, taking a tea break or shopping for gifts and supplies in the store. The Urban Crafts Center is made for people who love to make.

Owner and lifelong crafter, Angharad Jones, moved to Los Angeles from Oregon, where she was deeply invested in the crafting community. "When I moved down here I thought there would be a huge craft community because there is a huge art community. It's relegated to a couple of stores in town, but studio space was not part of the concept. So while looking for a place, I decided to start my own."

For a small fee, (paid hourly or monthly) the committed crafter has access to the center's bounty of tools and resources. The list includes sewing machines, a spinning wheel, a computerized die cut machine, a propane tank for precious metal and clay firing, polymer clay tools, rubber stamps, paper punches, embroidery hoops, needle felting, paper making, soap making, scrapbooking and dyeing equipment, and a washing machine for felting.

If walking into a room with all those possibilities seems a little daunting, classes are another option and may be just right for someone with restless fingers and a long-lost copy of Stitch and Bitch. Classes ranging from basic sewing to book binding as well as one-day workshops invite you to make a bar of soap, a piece of jewelry or possibly even a friend, which points to the other goal of the center - to be a place for crafters to simply hang out. Angharad explains, "I want it to be a spot to meet a friend, a community center. I want it to be the third place in your head, where you go other than home and work."

Although craft-related blogs have been flooding the Internet for some time now, Angharad is hopeful that the timing is still right. "I can't tell if we are coming in on the tail end of the resurgence of craft, but I think that the community side of it has a ways to go." She gestures to a circle of inviting rust-colored couches in the front of the store. "I would love to see people start crafting clubs or work on a project together, like a quilting bee. That's what people used to do - how they used to socialize. It can be like a modern day quilting bee."

THE DETAILS: The Urban Craft Center
2433 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405
310.392.0139
www.theurbancraftcenter.com

Story by Gwen Barba.