A rainy Monday was no deterrent for five crafters on Wiscasset's waterfront May 20. The women were setting up shop for their second summer of selling crafts together, out of the baby blue Maine Craft Shack.

The shack on the town-owned “creamery pier” opens for the season Friday, May 24, the start of Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start to summer.

They can't wait.

It's an income for all of them, but, as they found last year, vending on the waterfront in Maine's prettiest village has perks, like meeting people from around the world.

The shack's guest book was signed by visitors from Australia, South America, Canada, Europe, the Far East and from all over the U.S., fleece crafter Pam Shockley said.

The cooperative started when Shockley, of Westport Island, told her crafting friends she planned to rent a spot on the Wiscasset waterfront. “And they said, 'Not without us.'”

Shockley, 59, makes toys for children, dogs and cats, along with other fleece items like wraps, blankets and scarves.

Shockley owns the shack. Chipping in on the rent to the town are Anne Cole-Fairfield of Westport Island, who makes hot and cold “comfort” packs and cooling tubes to go around the neck; Kathy Closson of Wiscasset, who makes American Girl Doll clothes; Linda Estabrook of Bowdoinham, who sews potholders, placemats and trivets; and Diane Fitzmaurice of Topsham, maker of a line of blueberry-themed ceramic pottery. She draws the blueberries freehand onto both decorative and functional pieces.

Fitzmaurice, 54, got into her craft when she took a ceramics class one night a week. Items she gave away as presents were a hit. She now owns four kilns.

Closson, 66, is a former fourth grade teacher at Boothbay Region Elementary School and former substitute teacher in Wiscasset schools. The shack is like a summer-long craft show that only has to be set up once a year, she said.

“I love it,” Estabrook said of working at the shack. “We had a lot of fun last year, and there was a really good response.” Estabrook, 55, had always sewn clothes for her children, before turning her sewing into a business in 2001.

Cole-Fairfield's joint pain, and the unattractiveness of old-sock rice packs she was using to alleviate it, inspired her to design her own line of items. The rice had also heated unevenly in the tube socks, Cole-Fairfield, 62, said.

In addition to the five crafters' own items, the shack will be selling items from about 25 other crafters and artists, up from 16 last year. But don't look for even more next year. That would take a shack expansion that Shockley has no plans to undertake.

While the shack will be selling items crafted as far away as far as Portland and Auburn, many were made right in Maine's Midcoast. Westport Island will be represented by purses and bags from Robbie Greenleaf, fine art from Kathleen Anderson and Ken Shepherd's wooden bowls and wine stoppers; Judy Ward of Woolwich is expected to have sea glass jewelry at the shack, Shockley said.

The shack will be open from about 11 a.m. to about 5 p.m. seven days a week, weather permitting. For more information, call the shack at 207-837-5471, or Shockley, at 207-882-9412.

The shack has a blog at www.mainecraftshack.tumblr.com/.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com.