Selling handmade items as well as cakes, cookies, pies and desserts is a time-honored method used by churches and civic organizations to raise money. Call these sales bazaars, boutiques, faires, jumbles or fests.

No matter the moniker, these conglomerations of crochet and tatting, woodwork and scarves, potted plants and drawer pulls are crucial to sponsoring a group’s benevolent works. The brownies and tea cozies sold might fund emergency shelters or a scholarship, new vestments or carpeting.

And bazaars fill Whidbey’s fall weekends. At early ones, shoppers can find turkey-and-blazing-leaf placemats and cornucopias for Thanksgiving tables. In early-December, fragrance from evergreen wreaths competes with aromas of coffee and cinnamon-scented potpourri.

People who fill tables with handiwork and stock lunchtime chili and soup pots, anticipate bazaar weekends. But no one waits as eagerly as do the shoppers who wait at churches, lodges and community centers for the best choice of blankets, table runners and handcrafted ornaments.

“No matter how cold it is, there’s a long line before 9 a.m.,” Joyce DeYoung said speaking of First Reformed Church’s bazaar.

DeYoung, dessert sale coordinator, and Lorna Wieldraayer, bazaar veteran, admit to shopping other bazaars even after spending hours working on one for their church.

“We get ideas at other bazaars,” Wieldraayer said. She learned to sew by hemming dishtowels “way back when” on a pedal-powered machine. Now she sews all year for the bazaar. Best sellers include clover-leaf baby blankets.

“I love shopping at bazaars — they’re so much fun,” DeYoung laughed. But she confessed organizing the Friday night dessert sale is her forte. She got the idea from her daughters, Shelly and Rebecca Anne, who enjoyed such an evening at their church in Iowa.

Now First Reformed’s bazaar wouldn’t be the same without a “Night of Dazzling Desserts” as part of the preview.

To date, dessert sales and the bazaar have raised more than $100,000.

That’s a lot of baby blankets and chocolate caramel cheesecakes, plum puddings and crocheted angels.

DeYoung and Wieldraayer said the money gets spread around Whidbey Island and the world. Besides sponsoring seminary students in Mexico, bazaar proceeds have gone to homeless shelters, purchased new carpet and a refrigerator as well as vacation Bible school materials for the church. No one’s sure just where the money will go this year. That decision will come after everyone’s rested from their dash to bazaar.

“It’s a lot of time and work,” Wieldraayer said. “But many hands make light work.”

The bazaar’s story is much the same at Whidbey Presbyterian Church where set up and decorating take at least two days.

“We don’t open until 9 a.m.,” Suzanne McCrea said. “At 8:30 we say a prayer for calm.”

The rush starts immediately she said with some items flying out by 10 a.m. The pace may be hectic but McCrea said the hall’s atmosphere is fun with people chatting against a backdrop of Christmas music.

“We’re not here just to make money,” she said. “We enjoy the holiday spirit.”

McCrea said international and local charities always receive support from bazaar proceeds. But his year, funds are earmarked for a specific purchase: a new dishwasher for the church’s under construction kitchen wing.

At several workshops, a core group of Presbyterian women has produced place mats, blankets, hand-knit scarves and lots of angels, McCrea said.

“But so many people work on the bazaar,” she said.

Churches don’t hold a strangle-hold on bazaars. PTAs, service organizations and what could be called specialty groups have a place in the bazaar whirl. Each has its own flavor and focus.

Dickens of a Bazaar at Oak Harbor Middle School will feature vendors in Victorian costumes and raise money for the school. Oak Harbor’s Senior Center’s efforts bolster the center’s services.

Daughters of Norway don’t sponsor a bazaar or faire. Instead, Nordic Fest Nov. 13 at South Whidbey Middle School celebrates culture with crafts, music and traditional food. Items sold must be rooted in Scandinavia, Linda Spencer, a group member, said. Vendors from as far away as Montana will bring all manner of items from weaving to sewing to painting to carving Spencer said.

Musicians and dancers will add even more flavor to the day.

“Nordic Fest appeals to all the senses,” Spencer said.

A new bazaar this year won’t sell glass, woodwork or snowmen-painted-on-cinder-block doorsteps. At Whidbey Weaver Guild’s Unusual Threads sale Nov. 5 and 6, people can find spun and woven items plus fabrics, thread and fiber. The show promises unique clothing and art for many budgets. Proceeds from this show will fund fiber art education.

Whether people purchase a $3 ornament, a $20 wreath or a bowl of soup and slice of pie, shopping at local bazaar strengthens community. It’s also a more satisfying way to savor the holidays than perusing catalogs or bidding on line.