Author: Betsy

hello, happiness.

| Betsy

The amount of blog posts to read/skim/look through after not checking them for 5 days is out of control. After spending quite some time going through them, I then released that I had about 50 open windows on my computer for various things.

The photo above, from Design For Mankind, is my new favorite thing in the whole entire world. Can we say spot on? It’s just perfect and perfectly describes the perfect way to love.

The image found via Andre Jordan, who has an Ordinary Love Stories on his blog, A Beautiful Revolution. I’m smitten. To the max.



Here are some of the best in case you missed them:

*Hodge Podge Farm crochet geniuses series

*Cut Out & Keep’s decoupaged plaque instructions

*Resurrection Fern’s beautiful post entitled Don’t Waste the Miracle

*Economist’s article on Graffiti: Does it go hand-in-hand with bad behavior?

*Berlin’s Whimsy’s post, Another literary hero

*The Dead Generation via The Nervous Breakdown

*Prick Your Finger’s post about the work of Marie Paysant Leroux’s and the color of emotion

*The story behind my Keep Calm and Carry On poster from Faythe Levine

Part of 3 posters from the Gov’t of Information and “But the ‘Keep Calm’ posters were held in reserve, intended for use only in times of crisis or invasion. Although some may have found there way onto Government office walls, the poster was never officially issued and so remained virtually unseen by the public – unseen, that is, until a copy turned up more than fifty years later in a box of dusty old books bought in auction.

More from this series here.

*For a quick history lesson on DIY Craft, head on over to Anna Handmade.

Oh, and finally, I signed up for Twitter. So, if you’d like you can “follow” me over here, even though I’m still trying to figure it all out.

the world’s tiniest kitchen, 70s style.

| Betsy

1. Weird things happen when you’re at your parents house for the holidays and you start looking through old drawers and closets.

2. After finding my old dollhouse, I decided that a tiny kitchen needed to be built. You can tell the actual size by looking at the edge of the alarm clock on the right. And the “nut bowl” is actually the top of an acorn.

3. I really, really wanted that little plastic lady to be able to sit properly in that chair….then I realized that without knees, this was going to be a fool’s errand.

More late night childhood excavation over here on Flickr.

Want to win a free copy of Knitting for Good!? Go check out the details and enter the December Thrifty & Stylish Gift Wrapping challenge over at Craftster!

Also, the song Prelude for Time Feelers by Eluvium is so beautiful you just might keep it on repeat.

craftivism definition. (the early years)

| Betsy

My words about craftivism were used in a definition of the term the other day for Planetgreen.com’s Green Glossary. Reading it has been making me think of the exact origins of the term when I started wondering about it.

After kind of guessing when I started talking about craftivism, I looked through some old writing and discovered the following. The days when craftivism had 2 hits over on Google. (Those 2 hits were about a workshop being held by the Church of Craft.) I love that thousands of miles apart, “the word,” in 2002, was being thought about. That the combination of 2 disparate and negatively defined words were bubbling together in other minds than mine.

Now there are many, many more. I’m working on a history of things and it makes me so happy to know that what I wrote one morning many years ago wasn’t completely crazy. And: No, I didn’t get the internship and I’m still not the best sleeper. Yes, I still have giant unruly hair…and I still aspire to one day have a real beehive.

[As for the photos in this post, they are pages I made 4 years ago after taking some photographs of a London squat a friend was living in. The wordy bits were me trying to distill the idea of craftivism into as few words as possible. Clicking on the images will make them easier to see.]

11.26.02
Ow. My brain hurts. After 3 hours of sleep and much much coffee, I started to write a proposal for this journal I’m trying to get an internship with. Part of the application has to be a proposal for their forum.

So I started writing.

About Reagan-era music and Riot Grrrl, how if the past trends were true, then with a Republican in the White House, we should have some kickass music a la Bikini Kill, Tribe 8, the D[ead] K[ennedys]. So, where is it?

I proposed that craft is the new activism.

How the creation of things by hand leads to a better understanding of democracy, because it reminds us that we have power.

The problem is, I’m so tired that I can’t tell if this theory is full of shite or not. It might just be one of those things that only makes sense to me because I’m sleep deprived.

2.21.03
At last, it’s Friday. It’s so sad, I’ve been falling asleep at 8pm and sleeping through the night atleast one night a week. Don’t get me wrong, I always feel excellent the next day, but it’s cutting down seriously on getting things done.

Still obsessed with the craft and activism connection. Am I wrong in thinking that cross-stitching something like a throw pillow/t-shirt with “Attack Iraq? No!” or some such other slogan is a subversive act? I think that in taking the time to *cross-stitch* something rather than write it with a pen, you are making a statement. I could be wrong, though.

I am also still excited that I got my hair into a faux beehive last week. Need more big hair inspiration. If you happen to have a beard that you want to style, you can utilize equipment like Jaguar Hairdressing Scissors.

And….in book news, thanks so much for the kind words and emails, they have been so lovely! And so many great stories you have told me of knitting wonderful things for good!

Currently there is a signed copy of my book over at Linda Permann’s Etsy fundraising drive for Jasenn, her brother-in-law. Jasenn (who is 34 and has a wife and a toddler son) was recently diagnosed with stage IV kidney cancer. Do check out the shop, and purchase something to help Jasenn’s family Hope for Jasenn.

Among other wonderful things for sale, there are also signed copies of Susan Beal’s Bead Simple and Kayte Terry’s Complete Embellishing. Both of these books are by amazingly talented crafters who want you to know that yes, you can take back your wardrobe!

Operation W.A.N.T.

| Betsy

There few things that I like more than projects that bring to light the visceral raw truth of situations. It’s so easy to ignore these things happening so far away. It’s frighteningly easy to have it fade into the background news and to have it happen to other people.

That’s one of the reasons I started writing about craftivism, because I think it has the visual punch that is necessary to think about problems in new and different ways, ways that hit you in the gut and make you personalize what’s happening.

The photos above are from Operation W.A.N.T. (We Are Not Toys), when 7 members of the LA chapter of Iraq Veterans Against War placed 4,170 toy soldiers in a parking lot of a gas station on October 11th.

I especially like the fact that they used children’s toys to show just how many people (and how many families) have been changed forever thanks to the past years of conflict. And that’s just a tiny fraction of the number of individuals doing their jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Seeing all these little green army men lined up in a gas station parking lot (a place where we do pay attention to the numbers) hopefully personalized current events in a way that the 6 o’clock news never could.

With all the attention paid to gas station prices lately, watching them rise and rise and fall, we show that we can, indeed, pay attention to numbers. Just not when it doesn’t pertain to us.



Thanks to Rayna for the link who found it via Groundswell.

(photos: Jonas Lara)

welcoming the familiar and the familial.

| Betsy

So it’s almost Thanksgiving here in the U.S., my most favorite of holidays for reasons like snuggliness and hugs and warm sweaters. Tomorrow I head to the Georgia coast, which means a few extra special things like late night talks with my grandfather when everyone’s asleep, knitting with my grandmother, long solo walks on the quiet beach, watching the sea for the dolphins that always come at dawn and dusk.

And if I’m extra lucky, it also means spending an hour or two walking around and taking photos of the Southern gothic beauty of the Christ Church grounds and hearing all the family stories I never tire of even though I know them by heart.

After all the food has been eaten and the football watched and the whiskey consumed and the naps had on Thursday, it will be Black Friday. There are many sites online with coupons for the shopping day to end all shopping days like here and here. Many sites that help you with your day after Thanksgiving bring-on-the-holidays spendiness.

But what about actually celebrating Buy Nothing Day instead? Not just participating in the no spending activities, but actually enjoying the day itself? What about taking a day to enjoy all the things around you that don’t cost money?

How many more shirts do you really need? In this world where we are lucky enough to be able to drive to the store down the street and choose between 30 different brands of peanut butter, why spend a day off fighting just to consume more? You could be listening to old family stories again, remembering them for when you’ll be the only one to recite them, or curling up on the couch with an old blanket and your favorite book.

What about choosing not to buy new new new, and enjoying the tiny wonderful things that are on offer nearby, at arm’s length, and for free instead? What about daring to enjoy what’s in front of you instead trying to replace it for a new shiny moment? What about daring to be okay with what you have instead of looking for more? These tiny notions of rebellion and resistance are where life is to be enjoyed, honored and fully lived.