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.

community and in turn keeping crafting close to its folk roots.

“[The] Internet has been the most influential part of why hand-

made and craft has had a resurgence,” Levine says. One of my favor-

ite blogs, Twelve Square, is a perfect example of this integration.

What was once an analog quilting bee is now a blog and virtual quilt-

ing bee that follows 12 women making 12 quilts in 12 months. A link

to their Flickr site will bring you to a complete photo album of the

project. It is obvious that despite our desire for a digital respite,

crafts have become inextricably linked to the Internet.

I suppose if I were laboring over that same prom dress today

I might upload images to my Flickr or Facebook pages and let my

crafting comrades ogle at, or rather fashion-police my creation and

give me tips on better construction and cheaper materials. Maybe

I would even tweet how profoundly tedious it was to stitch one

stone after the next, hour after hour. I am an analog girl at heart, so

sometimes amid all this technology I get nostalgic about my grand-

mother and her sewing circle. Is mine bound to exist in cyberspace?

Probably so, but I embrace that. It is all part of the paradigm shift.

It is a continuation of what I, and other crafters, wanted to make

of our reinterpretation of this age-old tradition. When I first began

sewing I had a mission of redefinition: Changing the craft from

what my grandmother did with it and what my mother thought of it.

This felt right, and it still does.

Meribah K night is a Chicago-based freelance journalist. An essay about

sewing through three generations o f women in herfamily is featured

in the December issue o f O

Magazine.

♦

meribahknight.com

asg.org; etsy.com; bigcartel.com; whipup.net; knitty.com;

craftster.org/blog; burdasude.com/blog; getcrafty.com/blogs;

twelvebytwelvequiltbee.blogspot.com

dec/jan 10 american craft 051

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