
DATE: Sunday, June 29, 1997                 TAG: 9706260249

SECTION: CAROLINA COAST          PAGE: 10   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: BEYOND THE BRIDGES 

SOURCE: JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CAMDEN                            LENGTH:  103 lines

KEEPING FOLK TRADITIONS ALIVE CO-OP RUN BY LOCAL ARTISANS OFFERS CLASSES ON HOW TO MAKE EVERYTHING FROM COUNTED BEADWORK TO YOUR VERY OWN HAMMOCK.

Dive through the loop. Pull it tight. Throw another loop. Go around. Emerge through the back.

I repeated that process last week, over and over and over, about 150 times before I had something that looked similar to a hammock.

``It's easier than giving birth,'' said Machele Bailey, the jolly training manager at Watermark Association of Artisans.

But it seems to take just as long.

Hammock-making is one of many skills taught weekly at Watermark that allow people to make their own souvenirs rather than buying some. Located about 8 miles east of Elizabeth City, about an hour's drive from the Outer Banks, this artisan's haven includes a gift shop, classrooms and dozens of enthusiastic crafters who enjoy sharing their skills.

This week, for example, Watermark instructors are offering classes in basket making, counted beadwork, fabric wreaths and a quilt wallhanging. Most cost less than $20 - including all supplies. No experience is necessary. Almost every day of the year there is a craft class. Bailey requires preregistration at least a day ahead of time.

The Watermark retail shop brims with homemade dolls, baskets, clocks, cribs, stuffed animals, macrame, quilts and a multitude of other items. Most of the classes are held upstairs where there are a few work tables and assorted supplies and tools. I felt comfort in knowing the Watermark customers would not be able to look over my shoulder before my masterpiece looked like a masterpiece.

Watermark is a cooperative owned by the 800 people who join it, learn crafts and make them for fun and for profit. Bailey said any one of the members also could be a craft teacher.

``Our ultimate goal is to become a training and education center in this region of the United States,'' Bailey said. ``We really want to keep the folk art tradition alive.''

Watermark Training Coordinator Karen Peterson has been with the national award-winning cooperative for nine years and still signs up for craft classes herself.

``My husband and I are going to take tin punch together tonight,'' Peterson said. ``We may never do it again. But we will leave with a finished piece and we can say, `We've done that.' ''

I've always wanted to have a hammock. And making my own was better than buying one. The cost was cheaper, too: $40 for the instruction and supplies.

Besides, I knew I would have a hard time relaxing on a basket.

Like my three classmates (plenty of one-on-one attention), I started with a spool of white cotton rope, a long wooden needle that resembles the net-making tool used by fisherman and a wooden gauge.

Bailey doesn't hesitate much. In a few minutes she had four amateurs going through the hammock routine: Dive, pull, throw a loop and emerge. I did that for a total of about four hours. Hammocks aren't built in a day like most of the other crafts.

After the first class, I took the hammock home, hung it on a door and began the routine again: Dive, pull, throw a loop and emerge. It was fun. I was able to watch the NBA finals while I worked.

Basically, hammock making is a glorified method of tying a square knot. As Boy Scouts know, it's a cinch after a little practice. Fishermen use the same knot to make nets.

The needle helped me tie the knots. And the 4-inch by 5-inch gauge spaced the knots. In a couple of hours, I, who knew nothing about hammocks except how much I'd like to lie in one in the shade, was creating one.

It was looking like a real hammock. By the time I returned to class a few days later, I was comfortable with the procedure and actually believed I was going to finish this thing.

I took a duck carving class more than 20 years ago. I still have the unfinished block of wood with the square-looking duck's head. That doesn't happen at Watermark classes. Bailey sees to it that crafts are simple enough to finish in one class or two.

``We try to do that,'' she said. ``It is unusual to have a two- or three-day class.''

Hammocks are about the toughest to do - and they aren't that bad.

Tying knots to make the hammock's body takes longer than any of the other steps. Once we finished, Bailey taught us to braid the edges, then braid long ropes to a stainless steel loop, poke the ends through an oak spacer bar and tie them off to the ends of the hammock.

The hammock was about a six-hour project. Most classes take about half that time.

Now I'm ready to hang my new hammock under the River Birch tree in my back yard.

I already know the next steps: Crawl in, stretch and snooze. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JEFFREY S. HAMPTON

Machele Bailey, the training manager at Watermark Association of

Artisans displays a finished hammock that anyuone who sighns up for

a class can learn to make. Hammock making is just one of many skills

taught weekly that allow people to make their own souvenirs rather

than buying them.

Graphic

HOW TO GET THERE

What: Watermark

Where: Camden, 8 miles outside Elizabeth City, about an hour's drive