Saturday, 3pm at Crafts and Crumbs

The crafters let their fingers fly.

Photographs by Nisha Sondhe

At a cozy Saturday afternoon Brooklyn crafts circle, one thing is clear: This is not a stitch-and-bitch. “I am not partial to that name or purpose,” says 27-year-old founder Alicia Kachmar. The domestic goddess—a title she wields as a hobby and sometimes for profit, between freelance writing gigs—gathers friends for regular crafts and social sessions, but prefers her homier name for the “crafting and eating extravaganza.”

To prepare, Kachmar sets out homemade peppermint buttercream and chocolate sandwich-cookies, then a second variety of buttercream sandwich-cookies with an aquamarine filling that perfectly matches the walls of her apartment. In this Prospect Heights brownstone, nearly everything is handmade, from the picture frames to the miniature mitten ornaments that hang from the candelabra.

Kachmar started Crafts and Crumbs to revisit the female camaraderie she enjoyed at an all-girls high school and later at Smith College. “I grew up in a crafty household,” she explains. “My mom made our Halloween costumes and baked everything from scratch. My parents made me a work area in the basement and I was always down there concocting things.”

Though she’ll reluctantly leave Brooklyn in three weeks for new Manhattan digs, today Kachmar is punching snowflakes out of metallic paper and stringing them into a holiday garland for the window. “You really are insane for putting those up,” her friend Brenda says, with love, while examining a new knitting pattern.

The “crumbs” that Kachmar prepares for the crafters.

A crafty tome on the table, called Naughty Knits (“from the boyfriend”) has patterns for knit bikinis, lingerie and even Hootchie Kootchie Pasties. “I know very little about pasties,” says Nancy, who works in public relations and has been knitting since she and Kachmar were at Smith together. At least four knitters in the room (among crochet mavens and one felt-heart ornament maker) are using yarn donated by Nancy at the last meeting. “I had three grocery bags full,” she explains. “My roommate held an intervention and said, ‘You can keep two.’”

Not all of the eight craft-and-crumbers make money off of their creations, but the arts are well represented. Lisa, who is knitting a scarf for a two-year-old friend, works in special effects. Sarah is a graphic designer. Tracy develops software applications for Major League Baseball, and Chrysanthe edits a Brooklyn events newsletter. Charlene, who technically works in information technology, is a jack-of-all-trades, spinning and dyeing her own yarn, casting jewelry and making homemade marshmallows, which she’s brought today to go with the hot chocolate Kachmar made from scratch. “I worked in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom,” she says. “Knitting and other crafts were very popular to decompress after being so analytical all day.”

Kachmar’s sister, Lianna, who has her own clothing line called Vigilante Laboratories, uses four toothpick-size needles to knit a multicolored sock that will be part of her sister’s Christmas present. By 5pm, the hot chocolate is down to the last drop, so Kachmar opens up a bottle of red wine. Lianna laughs: “I can’t vouch for what your sock will look like after the wine.”

For more info on Crafts and Crumbs, visit aliciakachmar.com