Crafting a new culture
They're
young, they're hip, and they're not afraid to knit in public.
By
Stephanie Shapiro
Sun Staff
January 25, 2004
In a corner of the City Cafe, the soft click of knitting needles
blends with chatter, the hiss of the espresso machine and the
clang of silverware.
A pair of slippers, two hats and a beaded necklace materialize
from the handiwork of four women who have come to the Mount
Vernon restaurant in early January for a semi-monthly "craft
on."
Later in the month, during "Knit Night" at Atomic
Books in Hampden, some crafters seek a blissful state of creative
flow; others dish on politics, loves lost and found, the travails
of daily life.
Knitting fiend and Atomic Books co-owner Rachel Whang, 34, suspends
work on a hat with a white skull to guide neophyte Erika Paradine
of Baltimore, a 26-year-old mother of two. Paradine discovered
the weekly crafting bee by way of Hip Mama, an online magazine.
As they work in City Cafe and Atomic Books' very cool clubroom,
a new wave of crafters - many tattooed, pierced, dreadlocked
and wired - are reinterpreting American ingenuity with saucy
irreverence.
Once, they might have spent the night knitting (or trying to
knit) in front of the television. But as young women and some
men who craft find one another across the country and around
the world, they are forming circles in person and online for
teaching, friendship and collective immersion in soul-satisfying
work.
It doesn't matter what you make, Baltimore craft-on organizer
Amy LaPerle says. If it's portable, "do it." At past
gatherings, participants have carved pumpkins, illustrated 'zines,
tinkered with computers, the 29-year-old legal assistant says.
LaPerle taught her boyfriend, Justin Sabe, 29, how to knit.
He has since turned out several scarves and one cat toy. The
couple are equally at home wandering the aisles of Michaels
arts and crafts store as Home Depot.
LaPerle, Sabe and their coterie are among 70 million crafters
in the United States, says Don Meyer, director of marketing
and public relations for the Hobby Industry Association. Last
year, crafters bought $29 billion worth of materials from 12,000
retailers across the country, he says.
Reveling
in the irony
Although scrapbooking with digital technology is the hottest
craft craze, the "soft crafts," such as knitting,
have "really taken off with a lot of young people in their
20s and their 30s," Meyer says.
These crafting revivalists reject ready-made pleasures for those
that are homemade. Theirs remains a material culture, but it
is material of their own making.
They may keep long lists of "things to make," but
sneer at the impossible quest for perfection implicit in craft
queen Martha Stewart's approach, and revel in the irony of creating
while dirty dishes pile sky high.
Tsia Carson, the 33-year-old editor of Getcrafty, (www.getcrafty.com),
an online magazine with the motto "making art out of every
day life," cites a "complex" nexus of reasons
for the revival. There is a widespread "yen for independence
that comes not just from crafts but all kinds of DIY [do it
yourself] activity," says the New York designer.
"There is also a very emotional need to connect with something
very tangible for a lot of people who feel sort of overwhelmed
[by] post-capitalist consumer shock," says Carson, whose
current obsession is making "teeny tiny couture clothes."
Something "very simple like crafting with a group of people
is immensely rewarding."
When Getcrafty introduced its Glitter discussion boards, online
forums where readers can swap tips, ideas and arrange to connect
off-line, "that really made the site blossom," Carson
says. "There was a huge change in terms of traffic."
She estimates that the entire site receives about 250,000 "unique
visitors" a month.
The discussion boards' moderately brazen tone reflects crafting's
appeal for Gen X and Gen Y. A recent correspondent wrote: "Hot
Glue Gun Virgin Seeks Advice!" Another queried, "Has
anyone successfully crocheted their own bikini?"
Other impertinent craft Web sites abound. Not Martha, (www.megan.scatterbrain.org),
speaks for itself. Subversive Cross Stitch, (www.subversivecrossstitch.com),
sells designs that substitute profane adages for "Home
Sweet Home," undermining quaint visions of sweet-tempered
crafters tenderly stitching their way into the hearts of loved
ones.
The crafting renaissance encompasses creative possibilities
both glorious (knitted fuzzy mohair shawls) and tacky-but-cute
(Pacman wrist cuffs). Crafting, itself, is loosely defined as
almost anything made by hand. Fine needlepoint, quilts made
from raggedy jeans and lamps fashioned from old blenders all
qualify.
'Third
wave' feminists
These crafters don't fancy themselves as mad housewives a la
1950s or back-to-the-earth hippies vintage 1960s. Yet, they
glean inspiration from both eras, even as they note the ideological
chasm between the fastidious dictates of Good Housekeeping and
off-the-grid, utopian dreams.
Armed with hot glue guns and a careful reading of women's history,
many involved in the current crafting movement call themselves
"third wave" feminists. Liberated from traditional
gender roles by their predecessors, they can freely choose to
stay at home with the kids, work, do needlepoint, ride Harleys
or all of the above.
Crafting is also a way to honor ancestors whose creations were
undervalued as women's work, their descendants say. As she knits
a nubby blue hat for a friend at the City Cafe, Erin Mannion
says, "We are all very strong women with a lot of ideas
about feminism and how it relates to making work and [our craft]
often reflects that." Mannion, a 29-year-old photo lab
technician, has visions of one day building a home and its furnishings
from scratch.
Today, crafting is not a survival skill, but a middle-class
leisure activity that is often a luxury as well. It is not unusual
to spend $100 on wool for a sweater, says Lynda DelGenis, a
34-year-old technical writer and accomplished knitter from Baltimore.
She and contemporaries have "more time and money to spend
on ourselves ... we [craft] more for enjoyment. I personally
do it for meditation."
Making things can "be as valuable as a religious experience,"
says LaPerle, 29, as she knits a jewel-toned slipper at the
City Cafe. To that end, LaPerle hopes to open the Baltimore
chapter of the Church of Craft, an organization for passionate
crafters where members attend fiber study instead of Bible study.
New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Toronto
already boast chapters for creative communion.
Founded in 2000, the ecumenical group "aims to create an
environment where any and all acts of making have value to our
humanness," according to its mission statement.
"Acts of making" acquire added value among crafters
who find challenge in recycled materials. Getcrafty articles,
such as Top Ten Crafty Things to Buy at a Thrift Store and Make
Your Own Pillowcase Skirt, demonstrate a sense of economy worthy
of any grandma who braved the Depression.
Others use new fabrics and yarns to create beautiful, but decidedly
utilitarian items. No matter how exquisite her work, DelGenis
refuses to create anything that doesn't have a function. "It's
got to have a purpose or else it's a waste of time," she
says.
From
chic to cheeky
A recent scarf drive organized by the Getcrafty community illustrates
crafters' new-found identity as an online constituency with
clout. The effort yielded 340 homemade scarves for victims of
domestic abuse.
The crafting craze has spawned new avenues of commerce, as well.
Jenny Hart, of Austin, Texas, has a giddy following for her
Sublime Stitching embroidery designs, (www.sublimestitching.com.)
"Due to an overabundance of bunnies and smiling Holsteins,
this simple hand-craft was being passed over by the newly enthusiastic
needleworker. No more! Your search for cool craft patterns ends
here," Hart's Web site proclaims.
Her campy martini glasses, tiki gods and cowgirls have been
featured in nearly two dozen magazines. "I'm designing
for people who have a different aesthetic sensibility,"
says Hart, whose book, The Stitch-It Kit: Simple Instructions
and Tools for 30 Chic to Cheeky Embroidery Projects, will be
published by Chronicle Books later this year.
Like her peers, Hart attributes crafting's popularity to the
burgeoning "DIY" movement, which favors homemade everything
over pre-fab anything. "That's such a punk ethic, to do
it yourself," says. Hart, 31. "It doesn't have to
be expensive, and you can bring something new to it."
The current craft craze is also distinguished by a born-again
acceptance of "girly culture" that invites women to
revel in feminine arts once considered emblems of oppression.
Within the greater feminist community, though, crafting has
been criticized as a regressive throwback. Queens of the Iron
Age, a 2003 article by Justine Sharrock in a magazine dedicated
to examining popular culture from a feminist point of view,
caused a flap within the crafting community.
Although she focuses on the politics of housekeeping, Sharrock
also questions the ultimate consequences of so many women on
pins and needles. "The fun-lovin' lipstick feminist of
the mid-90s has become the home-obsessed, Brillo-pad chick of
the '00s," she writes.
LaPerle says crafting doesn't consign women to secondary status.
"I know my mom was ill in the fall and I knitted while
sitting in the hospital," she says. "Some people craft
their way through depression."
In some ways, the crafting trend is not so much a thorny question
for feminists, but evidence of a "humanist movement,"
in which LaPerle says she and all DIY believers are "working
to get out of a Westernized view of life."
SIDEBAR 1
In
the crafter's universal tool box
It's against Callie Janoff's religion to dictate what crafting
materials to use, but the co-founder of the Church of Craft,
a nondenominational group devoted to handicrafts, recommends
several items handy for all kinds of projects:
Hot glue guns. "Hot glue is the universal binder, and duct
tape," Janoff says. "Attaching one thing to another
is kind of the most basic precept of crafting."
Dritz Stitch Witchery Fusible Adhesive and other iron-on adhesives
that "bind any piece of fabric to another."
Cotton or synthetic batting. "Because it's flexible and
you can make things and stuff stuff with it," Janoff says.
Batting, which comes in rolls and bags, can also be used as
clouds, spider webs or as quilting material.
Used nylon stockings. They are "super flexible and good
for stuffing dolls or puppets or anything like that," she
says.
Yarn. "Yarn is the hot commodity," Janoff says. "It's
a super craft material" that can be used for collages,
wrapping presents and many other uses beyond needlecrafts.
Gimp. Janoff uses that familiar camp craft material, also known
as lanyard, to knit sacks, make necklaces and for crocheting.
Crafty
suggestions for learning more
BOOKS
1. The Knitting Experience Book 1: The Knit Stitch by Sally
Melville (Xrx, $19.95, 2002)
2. D.I.Y. Girl: The Real Girl's Guide to Making Everything from
Lip Gloss to Lamps by Jennifer Bonnell (Puffin, $12.99, 2003)
(This is for young adults.)3. Wild with a Glue Gun: Getting
Together with Craft Friends by Kitty Harmon and Christine Stickler
(North Light, $19.99, 2004)
3. La Casa Loca: Latino Style Comes Home, 45 Funky Craft Projects
for Decorating & Entertaining, by Kathy Cano-Murillo (Rockport,
$22.99, 2003)
WEB SITES
www.craftster.org
www.knitty.com
www.getcrafty.com
www.readymademag.com
www.ezquilt.com
www.churchofcraft.org
Crafting circles
Knit Nights meet 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Atomic Books,
1100 W 36th Street, Baltimore. Call 410 662-4444.
Craft-ons take place at 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. the first Monday
of every month at City Café, 1001 Cathedral Street. They also
take place on the second Sunday of every month. For time and
location, subscribe to Honcraft, a Baltimore craft information
list: http://epistolary.org/mailman/listinfo/honcraft.
The Saturday Morning Group, a knitting circle, meets from 10
a.m. until 12 p.m. Saturdays at A Good Yarn, 1738 Aliceanna
St. A $5 donation for charity is optional. Call 410-327-3884.
Copyright
© 2004, The Baltimore Sun
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