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If a home-décor show featuring only Vermont-made products were to make its way to television, Claudia Venon could take charge of two elements: interior design and fashion for the women of the house. Based in Malletts Bay, she provides design consultation to some of the priciest homes in the Burlington area. (She won’t reveal their owners’ names.) Claudia Venon Designs — formerly called Venon Homes and Interiors — has operated for 10 years on word of mouth alone, and the work keeps its proprietor busy five days a week.... Read more

Strong but pleasant aromas fill soap maker Missy Bly’s Burlington apartment on a recent weekday. And no wonder: Funneling essential oils into glass bottles, Bly is nearly hemmed in by ceiling-high stacks of freshly cut cakes and long, rectangular troughs of just-poured soap. The oils will soon infuse more batches of her quirkily named bars, including Rake in the Grass — which smells remarkably like a freshly mowed lawn — and Village Green, with its inimitable scent of what Bly calls “a picnic on a blanket in the park in Paris, 1870.”... Read more

Home-makeover shows are fun and addictive, but so far they’ve missed out on a gem: Vermont Art Sinks. The handcrafted stoneware basins sit stylishly atop vanities made from recycled wood, or can be rimmed for counter sinking. Glazed in earthy browns and greens, the sinks look just as sharp accented with sleek, minimalist faucets as with more rustic-looking taps. Homeowners need no better excuse to update their powder room than, say, the “Liberty” sink in burnt rose, surface-mounted to show off its flared silhouette.... Read more

Basket weaving has an undeserved reputation as a cop-out activity. But the truth is, the craft is so hard it’s often devilishly frustrating — even for Kristine Myrick Andrews, 54, who has been weaving baskets for more than 25 years. “Some days, some things are just maddening,” Andrews declares; for instance, securing the two half-round strips of rattan that make a basket’s rim using only a “wedge” technique.... Read more

Lacemaking is weaving without a loom. So explains veteran lacemaker Evelyn Gant, owner of Fine Threads, as she manipulates 70 or so bobbins, each wound with a single thread, on a “roller pillow” on her studio table. Gant crosses the bobbins over each other to weave the thread into a recurring pattern held in place by dozens of tiny pins. As soon as the pins become superfluous, they are moved to the front of the next iteration. The completed lace, emerging ever so slowly, seems to be made of air.... Read more

Gabriel Cole, 39, is a regular guy who happens to be able to expertly transform hot, liquid glass into goblets, vases and bowls. The brand name for his wares is, sensibly enough, Gabriel Glass. But when he raises the blowpipe to his lips like a silent trumpet, it’s hard not to think of the biblical Gabriel. When held up to the heavens, his colorfully stemmed wine glasses and swirled pedestal bowls coruscate as brilliantly as any respectable angel’s nimbus.... Read more

If you’ve renovated your home recently, chances are you’ve got a pile of leftover odds and ends: pieces of tile, strips of molding, window frames. All that stuff could come together to make something useful, such as a birdhouse, a table or a picture frame, but who has time these days for such whimsical little jobs?... Read more

There’s something about wooden blocks that draws all ages, say Jean and John Barberi, the husband-and-wife team behind Vermont Block-N-Toy. Once, after a dinner party in their Williamstown home, they found an adult guest hunkered down on the living room floor with a set of their blocks. “You know what he does for a living? He’s the captain of an oil rig!” John, 51, exclaims with a laugh.... Read more

Blacksmith Steve Bronstein loves to talk shop while tossing hot iron around. The manic energy behind Blackthorne Forge in Marshfield, he narrates highlights from the history of his trade at a shout as he pivots from roaring forge to anvil to pneumatic power hammer. The 51-year-old works barehanded, nominally shielded from flying sparks by a leather waist apron torn down the middle and, when he thinks of it, goggles.... Read more

Burlington potter Dan Siegel may spend hours watching a wheel turn, but it’s after firing that his work really gets around. This year Siegel showed up among 200 juried artists at the Renegade Craft Fair, held on the floor of a huge, unused public swimming pool in one of Brooklyn’s hippest neighborhoods. Dubbed “the alt-design equivalent of the Venice Biennale” by a New York Times writer, the fair sets trends in the design and crafts worlds alike.... Read more