08 June 11

Midwest Craft Caucus Thoughts: #1

I was lucky enough to attend the Midwest Craft Caucus this past weekend in Columbus, Ohio. It was refreshing, invigorating, creative, and gave me quite a bit to think about. I don’t know that I came away with answers, but I came away with new questions.

I want to take some time to flesh out what I’m thinking. But it won’t be a wrap-up or even a description of what I did or learned. Just some thoughts rolling around and in no particular order of importance.

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In 2003 we were so revolutionary in Chicago, Boston, Austin for doing indie craft shows because the only other things that existed were the Kountry Krafts and the high-end art craft shows. Then the slightly smaller shows popped up. Now craft shows in more rural settings, small towns, and more adventurous locations that don’t rely on a young, hip, urban shopping audience are popping up. This means that craft is mainstream. We’re no longer the weirdos that no one gets. We’re just the “slightly off the norm” folks that seem more committed than necessary. This means that not only do we need to thank our grandmas for a) crafting with care in the first place b) supporting the make-do and mend philosophy that the Baby Boomer generation has ignored but that we’re now finding wickedly necessary and cool to boot c) teaching us how to craft in many cases d) crafting enough that there are cool books from the 70s and and before that we can still check out of the library so that even folks in hipster-starved parts of America can still get their craft on. This also means we owe a huge apology to Kountry Krafters as well. Because all y’all were crafting quietly from the late 70s through the 90s, buying kits, and focusing on easier assembly goods, it means that there are still some stores that sell crafting goods in person. Which may go against our anti-sweatshop, anti-indie ethos, however (not all craftstores are chains and) it also means that there are still people manufacturing craft supplies, even If they’re not sweatshop free and located in the US. The fact that they exist means that we were capable of finding the supplies we needed to help us find our voice.

When the craft movement first went indie, we differentiated ourselves from the “snowman poop” sellers by focusing on our young indie design sensibilities. “Comic sans is totally ironic, dude!” “Owls and octopuses rule the world!” “Tea cozy? Forget that! How’bout a dildo cozy instead?” When we started we explained how we were different by describing the design sense of our work. We focused on how we didn’t use kits to make our goods, but we used what we had around and found cool ways to get it to become something new, something exciting.

However times have changed. Urban crafters don’t have a lock on cute owls, putting a bird on it, or even reusing materials. What started out as a city crafter vs. kountry krafter ethos difference has since become more nuanced. Much more nuanced. Now it is okay to use pre-made embroidery patterns (as long as they’re created by crafty doyenne Jenny Hart and not a mass-marketed [and posing as an indie] brand with questionable ethics). It is okay to buy pre-made pieces to assemble into a final product that is far cooler than its original parts. But, is it? Is our movement really all about avoiding slave labor, sweatshops, child labor? Or are we starting to rationalize buying cool Japanese fabric that was printed in China because it is too cute to be ignored? As we focus on how we want people to buy locally, are we being hypocrites by going online and buying all of our craft supplies for the lowest price possible? Is it even possible to get all of our raw materials in the US any more? And if it isn’t, is that where we should be focusing our energy?

So what really differentiates the indie craft movement from the craft movement? Where is the line drawn?

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13 February 11

Male Pattern Boldness: Negroni Sew-along

It is officially February 14th, and I just finished Day 3 of the Negroni Sew-Along. To say I’m behind is a bit of an understatement. And I feared I would a bit behind, but I didn’t realize we’d get hit with a blizzard, AND I’d get hit with another 2-week bout of illness. (Aside from a few weeks in January, I’ve either been getting sick, sick, or getting over a cold since the middle of November.)

But instead of making excuses, I’d thought I’d show my progress and document where I am right now in the sew-along to make a shirt for Andrew.*

Pockets for the shirt

The pattern, and Peter, start with the pockets for the shirt. These are not perfect, but I honestly wasn’t trying very hard to make them perfect either when I was cutting or sewing or pressing.

The pattern says that the pocket flap should be sewn on a 1/4” seam and the pocket should be sewn on a 3/8” seam. Well, if you look closely you’ll see that the flaps are larger than the pocket when they should be the exact same size. So, I think this means I need to pay more attention when I sew the pocket flap next time (hopefully out of the real fabric) to make it the same size as the pocket itself.

One great tip I read in the comments was how to make the two pockets so they were the same shape and size. Peter suggested creating a template to use for pressing. I have used this idea before, but it is a bit fiddly.

A commenter suggested sewing them right sides together, turning right-sides-out, and pressing the beeejeeezus out of it. Then turn them back inside-out and remove the stitching. This gives you two pockets with essentially the exact same size, shape, curve, etc.

I loved the idea so much that I tried it, and it was the perfect solution. I can see myself using this method when I place patch pockets on the insides of bags, as well.

Aside from needing to make sure that my pocket flap is the same size as my pocket, I’m pretty happy with my success on this so far. The only other change I’ll make on the real shirt is to change the top-stitching. Peter suggested top-stitiching 1/4” from the flap edge, which is what I’ve done here. I think it is too far from the edge and makes the pocket look more homemade. So before I go to bed, I’m going to look at Andrew’s existing pockets and see how they’re handled. But I suspect that a 1/8” top-stitching seam is what I’ll use in the future. I may do a double-row of stitching in thread coordinated to match the fabric. But that’s only if I’m feeling daring.

The real fabric I’ll be using for Andrew looks like this:
Men's wool shirting

It is 100% wool (I’m going to test-wash it soon, even though I’m nervous). It’s a bit retro, but the striped pattern will help with the grain-finding in the real shirt, but the pattern isn’t so crazy that I think I’ll have a hard time matching it up.

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23 January 11

Sewing something other than bags

Not yet, but soon. Very soon.

While trying to muster the concentration for blog-reading a few nights ago, I came across this sew-along and thought, “hey! I’ve got that fabric I purchased to make Andrew dress shirts a while ago. Maybe I should try this.” Then I remembered how intimidating the matching up of all the stripes seemed on all the little pieces and the fitting, and the yokes, and the facings and the, oh my. So the fabric sits and stares at me and says “Really? Am I not even worth a few hours of your time?”

So when I saw that this fantastic gentleman was going to do a sew-along and break it down into small steps, I decided to splurge and purchase the Negroni pattern from Colette. And I’m glad I did. It arrived last night. The packaging is amazing, the booklet with lots of perfectly clear instructions seems so much easier to deal with than the men’s shirting patterns I currently have.

So wish me luck. If nothing else, I’m really looking forward to making something that will be very different from what I’ve been doing. Even though I’ve not talked about it at all, I’ve been making many bags. Most of them are very, very custom. And I’ve loved them all, eventually. (There were a few what gave me wicked fits for a bit.) But just haven’t had the time or the desire to talk about them once they were made.

So, I’m thinking that learning something new will not only inspire something in me to find this sewing thing as a hobby again, but will also inspire me to write again. I miss it. I just need to make time for it again.

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14 January 11

The Chicago Craft Mafia got a brand new site, baby!

And isn’t it gorgeous?

Many thanks to Mr. Regan (who will be getting many cookies filled with gratitude and chocolate) for creating such an amazing site for us. It’s been a long time coming and we couldn’t be happier. It’s run on WordPress (which I’m admittedly not fond of) but the site is so pretty and it is great.

I’ll be posting on the site at least once a week, but I’ll also likely be cross-posting things here, too.

For example, this is the text of the first post I made, but I think you should go read it there instead.

*****

A few weeks ago there was quite a dust-up about a few vendors who had some items in their shop that many (including me) felt were items that did not fit within the Etsy umbrella of “peace, love, and crafting”. They promoted (or at least seemed to laugh at) violence of women and people with disabilities. Etsy didn’t have policies that specifically spoke against the objectionable works, so they let them remain online for sale. This inspired many people to write some angry letters of complaint to Etsy and so they decided to take a look at their policies and determine what they felt like their audience wanted prohibited from the site.

Today they announced that they were changing their policies. They will:

no longer allow items or listings that promote, support or glorify hatred toward or otherwise demean people based upon race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, disability, or sexual orientation; including items or content that promote organizations with such views.

I support this policy change and think it is a great way for Etsy to support their audience by letting their audience decide what is wanted and welcome and what is not. Thanks, Etsy.

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20 September 10

TechCrunch Examines Etsy

Thanks to another fellow mafiosa, I came across this article in TechCrunch.com about how Etsy.com needs to change in order to grow their business. I found it to be a pretty fascinating read. As someone who remains curious about the viability of quitting her day job to make a living making handbags, it was definitely a subject I feel interest in.

Essentially what has happened, is a writer has decided to dissect the business model of Etsy, figure out where their business comes from how it has grown, and what it needs to do to keep growing. Steven Carpenter estimates that Etsy will make $30 million in profit this year and compare it to $15 million in profit they made last year.

While I encourage you to read the article yourself, because I’m interested in being able to find parts of this information later for myself, I thought I would write it up and share it. There were two questions that Carpenter decided to try to answer:

The two key questions for Etsy are: How big is the market for handmade products? And can it continue to take share from eBay’s marketplace business?

Etsy gets 5.6 million hits per month currently and 4.4 million hits per month one year ago. Most of their traffic occurs during the last few months of the year for holiday shopping. There are 6.7 million products for sale. 1.5 million of those listings are jewelry (in contrast, about 40% of the applications we receive for the DIY Trunk Show are from jewelry makers). Art supplies and vintage are there other top two categories.

In order for Etsy to continue to grow, the average price of items sold needs to increase so they gain greater profit on each sale. They also need to attract more shoppers. Their statistics show that once someone shops on Etsy with a positive experience, they’re more likely to come back and shop again. New listings are growing faster than new members, which means people selling goods are posting more goods to sell, but new makers are not joining at the same rate.

In order to grow, Etsy needs to attract more international shoppers before foreign upstarts create competing sites, in needs to create and maintain local presence, Etsy needs to attract more sellers and more listings, Etsy needs to increase the average merchandise value, Etsy needs to match local supply to local demand to save on shipping, improve discovery on site and make people’s experience personal, Etsy needs to find ways to get sellers to market for them, Etsy needs to increase sales during other gift-giving times, Etsy needs to create new income streams. They could charge for Alchemy and create similar products. Given the income stream being international, it may make sense for Etsy to have their own payment method to replace Paypal.

I’m not sure how all of this would affect me as a seller, and ultimately while I want Etsy to do well, I’m more concerned about how well I do. I think I’m okay with being selfish in this way. But one of the most interesting parts of this article are the comments. I NEVER suggest reading comments on news sites because they quickly devolve into trogoldytes arguing with trolls, but this one is interesting.

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12 July 10

Looking for Inspiration

I’m burnt out. It’s hard to say that out loud. The last couple of months or so I’ve had a hard time keeping ahold of my motivation and inspiration. In many ways I’ve felt like I’m just fighting an uphill battle with the to-do list at home, the to-do list at work, the to-do list for Poise, the to-do list for the other projects I want to be involved in. And it’s just overwhelming. I think I go through this periodically, start to wonder what the sense in keeping any of it going is. Why do I always bite off more than I can chew? Do I secretly like that panicked, choking sensation when I realize I have too much to do in the time allowed? Or has it become such a pattern that I don’t know how to break out of it?

And I say this realizing at this point last year I was halfway through writing a book. This year what have I done? I made a couple bags, and, um, started to reorganize the kitchen, and, um, yeah I started a few knitting projects. Sigh. Maybe it’s because I don’t have an externally created deadline. I’m not good at creating deadlines for myself, although I have gotten better.

But I’ve been whiny about it. I start talking or thinking about all of the things I “have” to do and I feel whiny. Andrew and I talked about this a few nights ago, and I had no answers. I resisted the urge to go through all of the things I have to get done, all the projects I’ve started but haven’t completed (oh dining room, you were so on the way to looking perfect). And as I woke up on Sunday, feeling much less whiny after a good night’s sleep, I couldn’t help but wonder if that is part of the problem. I don’t sleep enough. I don’t think I’ve felt rested 7 days in a row for years. I need to fix it.

But I also think I need to create a to-do list of all the things I feel like I have to get done. Maybe having them in a concrete list that I can check off will make me feel more organized. It worked at work and for the DIY Trunk Show. The sense of anxiety and panic subsued and I was able to just look at the list and figure out what I could do next. If it isn’t an ordered list, I think it’ll be easier to read through. While I was thinking about the things I needed to go on my list, I saw a blouse that I cut out two years ago.

I actually cut out the fabric to be a dress two years ago. I had it mostly complete and realized that the interfacing for the button facing was way too heavy, and I looked like a character out of Little House on the Prarie, which could be cool if it were for Halloween, but it was supposed to accompany me on vacation. It ended up hanging on a hook in my closet, mocking me every time I wanted something behind it.

So last night I ripped off the facing, cut out new facing, sewed it on, pressed it, hemmed it and marked buttonholes. And now that I look at it all ready for cutting and sewing and button applying and I wonder if I should have marked the buttonholes the other direction instead. Side-to-side? or Up-and-down? What a quandry. It may not really matter, in the end, at least not as much that I finished something. It’s going on the top of the to-do list. That way I have something to start with that makes me feel accomplished and reminds me that none of the things on my list are bad. As long as I take them one at a time.

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04 June 10

I am sewing

Just not for myself, and not much that is brand new.

But I did make a dress for my buddy Lil’E this week.
Summer dress

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I’d purchased this pattern last year with plans to make a dress for her out of it, but it was so cold, and I was a little busy so I never got around to it. On Sunday, after several very warm days, I was talking to E and she said to me that sometimes it’s so hot that it just isn’t right to have to wear a t-shirt. I agreed and mentioned that dresses were often cooler than t-shirts. And that’s when I remembered that I had a warm-weather dress pattern for her. So I found (not too hard after the recent room clean) it and showed it to her. It only took a yard of fabric, had 4 total pattern pieces (one of which was for the elastic) and seemed very easy. So I pulled out a number of fabrics and let her shop. She weighed the merits of many, discounted several because she didn’t have shoes to match, and finally settled on this fabric. I cut a yard off the bolt, threw it in the wash, and the next night spent less than three hours cutting out pieces, pinning, sewing, fitting, and finishing. It was a great fast project.

Now this dress is backless which means it is not appropriate for school and I wanted to make that clear while I was fitting her. She rolled her eyes and gave me an exasperated “I know”. But honestly I was a little worried that my modest friend would love it while standing in my sewing room, but be way too afraid to wear it out. So I asked her if I could take a photo of her wearing the dress to put on my website. “Oh yeah, you’re like my mom. You gotta show everyone you know everything you do. I understand.” (uh oh!) But then we had a fashion show where I took about 100 photos and she looked at them on the computer in stages and kept deciding what she wanted the next shot to be. I told her I would adjust it so it didn’t look quite as orange and lighten it up a little and she refused. I’m not sure why felt it was inappropriate, but I’m honoring her wishes.

I think there will be more dress-making in my future. And honestly, it is a LOT more fun to sew for other people than it is to sew for myself.

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06 May 10

The Purse-onal Is Political

I’d intended to publish this on May 1st, but due to some still unfinished research, I hadn’t. Then, the gloriousness that is Anne Elizabeth Moore prodded me so I’m posting.

Thanks to the fantastic customers that I’m lucky to have here at Poise.cc, I am going to be able to make a donation to Harpswell Foundation in the amount of $100. My generous employer will be matching that to make it $200, and the even more generous Pritzkers will be matching that to make it $400. Based on the information available on their website, this means that my selling a handful of bags means that one woman in Cambodia has a year’s worth of tuition and a portion of her meals paid for.

I’m generally a pretty humble person and rarely pat myself on the back, but I gotta say that this is amazingly fantastic. And I do mean AMAZING. I get to do something I enjoy (making cool bags with pretty fabrics), other people find the things I make useful and attractive so they buy them, and in turn I get to donate money to an organization like Harpswell so they can have a marked influence on one person’s life. Who will have an influence on 4 people’s lives, who will have an influence on 4 people’s lives. You dig? That Pay It Forward theory seriously works, people.

So, craft matters people. Seriously. Craft is feminist. And if you don’t believe that craft can suck the verve out of the patriarchy stitch-by-stitch, then I dare you to go to a dormitory in Cambodia and tell that to a young woman next year.

And I haven’t announced my organization for May, because I haven’t found one. I want to donate money to an organization that will be assisting with the cleanup efforts in the Gulf area but haven’t found the one that I feel most connected to. If you have any suggestions, feel free to send them my way. If I don’t find an organization soon, then I’ll just make any May purchases benefit Harpswell. I will be announcing another organization for June. I’m pretty excited about them. I’ve wanted to give money to them for years and they’re excited to have me announce who they are. But May is up in the air for now.

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