Crafting as Feminism

Along with my interest in organic food and finding a way to be kinder to the earth with my food choices, I've also started doing some craft projects at home.

Mostly, my projects are crocheted items. I took a short course last fall in beginning crochet and have been busy making things since. So far, I've made two purses and a shawl, and now I'm working on an afghan for my husband. The project list is HUGE!

I love crochet. My mother taught me to crochet as a child, but I abandoned it when I couldn't climb trees with both a book and crochet supplies.

Crocheting is very relaxing for me. I like to do it while watching television with the family because it gives me something worthwhile to do rather than just sitting there. Plus, somehow, I feel closer to my mother (who died about 11 years ago) while I do it.

My mother was very crafty. There wasn't anything that she couldn't do once she tried. She sewed most of our clothes (it was cheaper!), and she could knit, crochet, do needlepoint, cross stitch, and, about a year before she died, had even taken up quilting. If there was some way to make something that was decorative or useful, my mother could do it.

I suppose it is natural to be drawn into crafts growing up in such a household. When I was in college and after, I did a lot of cross-stitch and needlepoint. I lost all interest in these projects after my mother's death, but renewed my interest in all kinds of arts and crafts after we decided to simplify our lives.

So, now I crochet and make gifts and plan projects. Next fall, I plan to take a knitting class (although I had one person tell me that if you love crochet you won't like knitting). There seem to be so many more patterns for knitting than crochet.

I'm also interested in learning to weave, but there's only one place in this area that teaches this craft, White Rock Weaving. The owner is wonderful and the classes look fascinating, but the waiting list is very long, unfortunately. I keep hoping I can find some other place I can learn this skill.

Women's eNews has an interesting article on the resurgent interest in domestic arts. The author says it is "a new brand of feminism and participate in a broad, unstructured resistance to the mass-marketing of products and policies."

Homemade wares were once the key to survival, but as industrialization replaced locally produced goods, they became basement hobbies by the 1950s, largely sequestered off in a cultural corner.

But in an era of rising anxiety about the effects of globalization--on everything from the economy to social cohesion to the biosphere--many young women in their teens, 20s and 30s are joining a push to make things local and more personally connected. And for many of them knitting and stitching is the way in.

"There's something undeniably empowering about saying, 'I made that,' whether the finished product is a crocheted tea cozy, a water bottle chandelier or a rig to connect your iPod and a car stereo," says Julia Cosgrove, managing editor of ReadyMade, a Berkeley, Calif., magazine chock full of craft project ideas. "The DIY movement offers its members the utmost independence, so it's no surprise that feminists, who had long fought for independence and equality, should find a home within its confines."

I like the sense of accomplishment I feel as I complete a project (and I have a rule that each project MUST be completed before a new one can be started!). I also enjoy the satisfaction of giving things to people that will mean more to them than just another gift card. Even my son says he thinks crochet is "fascinating."

I hadn't thought of my new projects as an extension of feminism, but I suppose in a sense they are. There's empowerment in making things oneself and a satisfaction that comes from creativity.