rise of independent crafts and
d i y
culture, remembers curling
up on the couch wrapped tightly in her grandmother’s crocheted
afghan. Betsy Greer, author o f
Knitting for Good,
cherishes the
Christmas stocking her grandmother made for her—still a fixture
at her holiday celebrations—as well as the moments they bonded
over needlepoint and cross-stitch. There was a seminal tactile expe-
rience for each one of us that ignited our interest in and penchant
for handcrafts, and within each of us was a desire to honor a tradi-
tion while at the same time turning it on its head. Our grandmothers
had been oppressed by such women’s work, our mothers had op-
posed it and we would elevate it. What emerged was an entirely
new domesticity that redefined what it meant to be a woman who
worked with her hands. “It is the idea of reclaiming something that
was someone else’s and making it yours.
... It is up to you. There
are no rules and that is incredibly empowering,” Levine says.
And while the connection may have been lost on me as a teen-
ager, the objective, in hindsight, is obvious. What many saw as anti-
feminist, this new generation of crafters, me included, saw as the
next step toward female self-assertion. “We felt like it was finally
OK to take back knitting because we had established ourselves in
the workplace,” says Greer. “[Feminist predecessors] were trying
to change the paradigm, and that is exactly what we are doing.”
Today, coinciding with this paradigm shift, is a rejection of mass-
produced goods, an overall yearning for self-sufficiency and a way
to opt out of commercial culture. In high school I dreaded relying
on my parents, fashion trends (minus that bra faux pas) and paltry
allowances, and in my adult life I regard with equal dread Wal-Mart
and ethically questionable clothing produced overseas. And I am
not alone. According to Janome America, the w'orld’s largest sewing
machine manufacturer, the number of sewing machines imported
into the u. S. has increased by a third in the last decade. In 2007, prior
to a faltering economy, it had nearly doubled. At the American
Sewing Guild, membership has increased steadily by about 15 per-
cent each year.
Moreover, as I find myself spending more time connected to
the digital w'orid through my computer screen, I thirst for something
tactile. After a long day of gazing at pixels, all I want to do is to
touch something real, something three-dimensional. Over a glass
of wine and accompanied by National Public Radio, I spend many
of my evenings negotiating buttonholes and self-facing zippers.
Sewing unplugs me.
Anne Wilson, an artist wiio teaches weaving and fiber arts at
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, says that 12 years ago her
students were predicting a future embedded in digital. Now, she
says, “The w'eaving classes are bursting at the seams. There is so
much interest in reengaging with these processes and seeing the
digital and tactile w'orid come together.”
While I would like to insist that the tactile reigns supreme as
I press, stitch, fold and cut, the Internet does play a supplemental
role in my sewing experience. Sites like Etsy and Big Cartel are
portals for consumers as w'ell as a venue for crafters. These sites
allow' the makers themselves to sell their w'ares, creating a cot-
tage industry based on age-old traditions buttressed by the digital
age. For recreational crafters and professionals alike, blogs like
Whip Up, Knitty, Craftster, BurdaStyle and Get Crafty act
as equalizers by connecting across the independent crafting
050 american craft dcc/jan io
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