The Craft Lounge to close after a decade in Leonia

LEONIA ─ The Craft Lounge is different from how Susie Levy and Kathy Pecht had imagined it.

It’s cuter. Cozier. And it has a community atmosphere the sisters did not anticipate when they dreamed of opening an arts and crafts store as teenagers.

“We didn’t realize what a huge community thing this would be,” Levy said. “I feel like we’re part of the fabric of the town.”

Throughout the past decade, the sisters have woven a “little oasis” into Broad Avenue, operating a part-boutique, part-craft space where they sell hundreds of handmade items, teach budding crafters and host get-togethers for the artistically inclined.

“When you’re a kid you think of work as work,” Pecht said. “This has never felt like work.”

But running the store also hasn't been easy. The Craft Lounge requires working Saturdays and long hours and coping with the mounting pressures of maintaining a brick-and-mortar store in the age of online shopping.

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After 10 years — "A nice, round number," Levy said — the sisters have decided to close up shop this spring.

"We sort of looked at each other and said, 'Are we done? I think we're done,' " Pecht said. "We're shutting down in the similar organic way in which we started."

The Craft Lounge opened in July 2008 as a physical manifestation of a playgroup that gathered at Pecht's house every month for a night of knitting. The meetings grew so popular that they evolved into a biannual craft fair held at the home of Jennifer Richards, a founding partner of The Craft Lounge, and the library and, finally, into the store itself.

"We used to hang out and say it would be fun to have a store where we could teach people to do crafts and sell crafts," Levy said. "But we didn't think about it much until we started doing the knitting group."

The store became a family affair. Levy and Pecht outfitted the space with furniture from their childhood. Their children regularly stopped by on their way to school. They threw parties for other young mothers and their children, teaching them to knit, write, crochet, sew, bead and make things with their hands.

Strong word-of-mouth drove the retail part of their business, originally envisioned as a minor part of The Craft Lounge. The boutique started with a roster of some 20 artists and will close with well over 100, most of them women.

"We've made lifelong friends here," Pecht said. "What a gift it's been to meet these wonderful women and be able to promote women as entrepreneurs."

The artists have included dentists, lawyers, dancers, hairstylists and others who work by day and craft by night.

"You're never going to get rich making things, but the people who do it just really want to do it, and this gives people a chance to earn a little bit of supply money back," Levy said.

Sometimes Levy and Pecht have provided the supplies themselves, giving crafters space and resources to make things for charity. They've sent blankets to the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting and paper cranes to Japan in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami, and twice a year they drop off chemo caps at Englewood Hospital.

The Craft Lounge has also become a place of healing and refuge on its own. Pecht said she's taught knitting to countless women who were told by their doctors to take up the craft to relieve stress.

“I really enjoy teaching it because I know I’m giving somebody the opportunity to relax and make pretty things," Pecht said. "This place is a nice antidote to the stress and speed of the modern world.”

On Feb. 15, The Craft Lounge will open its doors for a final gathering and celebration before the April closing. Pecht and Levy have not decided what they’ll do once the store closes but said they intend to work together and devote more time to crafting things themselves.

“I’m really excited to knit again, to make stuff,” Levy said. “I’m looking forward to being a little creative.”

Email: shkolnikova@northjersey.com