crafts – A Note On a Rainy Night

That’s my motto, here’s my banner

Superbook of Things to Make (1974)

Another charity shop book- this time from the 70s. It’s a slightly strange mix of technicolour things made from recycling bin objects or fabric scraps, and then a section about making candles.

Das Große Bastelbuch für Kinder (1996)

I got this craft book for kids from a charity shop in Austria earlier this year. Austria doesn’t have the same volume of charity shops as the UK, but when you do find one they’re usually really good, especially in small towns, where vintage isn’t really a big thing.

Graz Art Museum

Craft as radical?

I’ve split the article up into four sections- my criticisms of radical spaces and scenes I’ve known, of the fashion industry, and of the current commercial craft revival, and then at the end explaining the ways I think doing textile crafts can be radical. In writing the article, I was specifically thinking of crafts such as sewing and knitting, both because they are things I do, and also because they are stereotypically done by women and often dismissed as silly and frivolous, but a lot of the points can apply to any handicraft. As well as dealing with the topic of crafts, it’s really more of a kind of wander round my thoughts about “radical”. The section on crafts is actually the shortest, but I’ve used it as the overall framing device. I’ll probably manage to piss off both the cliquey punx and the craft blogger people with this, but never mind.

Roll up, roll up

I’ve been very busy this week. On Wednesday I moved all my stuff out of London and into storage until the end of May, and visited my dad, then took the train up to Sheffield to see friends and table at the Sheffield Zine Fest. I had a great time, but I was exhausted and fell asleep at 7pm on Saturday! I’m going back to Yorkshire this weekend for a friend’s wedding, and then Italy the following week (ridiculously, it was cheaper to go on holiday to Lake Garda, hardly the cheapest region of Italy, than it was to extend my tenancy a week in London. Let that one sink in… ). When I come back towards the end of May, I’ll then go to Sussex to house-sit for the summer.