Crafting Community


Book Description

This book explores the threads between community building and fiber arts. Essays explore a variety of communities, different types of crafts, and the unique spaces and places where those communities exist. Readers will get a sense of how community is established, supported, and deconstructed to better understand the benefits they hold for community members. Thinking about how the communities work and why members join and stay within them offers the reader a rich view into the world of fiber arts and the communities within.




Craft Activism


Book Description

Join the Handmade Movement! We make to give. We make to share. We make to connect with others. Crafters all over the world are using their hands and hearts to make a statement, change the world, and build community. Craft Activism is an inspiring celebration of this growing movement. Inside, dozens of superstars of this grassroots phenomenon share their experiences, tips, and advice on living, teaching, and promoting a more meaningful DIY lifestyle. Learn to craft for your cause, connect with other crafters, think green, organize a fair, host an online exchange, create yarn graffiti, and more. The book also includes 17 creative projects from designers who challenge you to reimagine how your craft skills can be used to make a difference. Whether you knit, sew, crochet, or collage—and even if you’re not sure where to begin—this book is your guide to the incredible power of handmade.




The Craft of Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning


Book Description

Using a conversational voice, the authors provide a foundation as well as a blueprint and tools to craft a community-engaged course. Based on extensive research, the book provides a scope and sequence of information and skills ranging from an introduction to community engagement, to designing, implementing, and assessing a course, to advancing the craft to prepare for promotion and tenure as well as how to become a citizen-scholar and reflective practitioner. An interactive workbook that can be downloaded from Campus Compact accompanies this tool kit with interactive activities that are interspersed throughout the chapters. The book and workbook can be used by individual readers or with a learning community.




Craft Communities


Book Description

Craft Communities addresses the social groups, old and new, which have developed around craft production and consumption, exploring the social and cultural impact of contemporary practices of making. Addressing a wide range of crafting practice, from yarnbombs to Shetlands shawls, brassware to paper crafting, in a variety of regional and national contexts, the contributors consider how craft practices operate collectively in the home, communities, businesses, workshops, schools, social enterprises, and online. It further identifies how social media has emerged as a key driver of the 'Third Wave' of craft. From Etsy to Instagram, Twitter to Pinterest, online communities of the handmade are changing the way people buy and sell, make and meet.




Heritage, Crafting Communities and Urban Transformation


Book Description

This book emphasises the need to empower marginalised communities to contribute to decision-making processes within policy realms. It contributes to ongoing debates in the social sciences about infrastructure rights and citizenship, and it throws insight on human-infrastructure interactions in the informal neighbourhoods of the global South. The book delves into the complexities of caste, gender, class, and political identities and affiliations associated with the multiple factors of inclusion and exclusion particularly in the case of access to infrastructure in informal settlements in urban areas with an added productive function. This book is about how this historic inner-city, situated, religious idol-crafting community is transforming due to factors including access to physical and social infrastructure, local governance policies, socio-political hierarchies, and complexities of informal tenure. Drawing on sociocultural norms, and values of idol-crafting practices, it documents, analyses and presents the networks and relations of the neighbourhood through a spatial and material lens. Findings contribute to understanding how traditional practices of a crafting community are adapting, appropriating, producing, and reshaping informal spaces in Kumartuli. 'The book is aimed at academic audiences across the world researching creative industries, Kolkata’s regeneration agenda, and cultural tourism. It will be of interest to the wide disciplines of Urban Studies, Development Studies, Architecture and Planning, and Culture and Tourism Studies.




Books


Book Description

- Fun and visually appealing way to understand how a book is made, through the work of 30 diverse contemporary makers and artists - Broad appeal: this book speaks to a broad audience of craftspeople - anyone related to books and bookmaking - whether they are amateurs or professionals - Author London Centre for Book Arts has strong social media following (40k followers on IG), and so do many of the featured makers - Beautifully illustrated with colorful and inspiring images, behind-the-scenes shots of the makers' studios, and photographs of the makers at work - Includes contributions from experts that give insight into the different processes used to make a book Books are a meeting place. A sum of their many parts and artistic approaches. Form, concept, material, and craft are bound together to create something rooted in its functionality; a process that often crosses over into the messier realm of art. Books. Art, Craft & Community presents a thriving ecosystem of papermakers, printers, bookbinders, artists, designers, and publishers from around the world. They draw on traditional skills, art, and experimentation to make books that matter today. With over 30 profiles - spanning traditional craftspeople, to modern makers reimagining the book for new audiences - and contributions from experts, we are given an insight into the history and contemporary context of the processes behind the books. Selected by Simon Goode and Ira Yonemura of the London Centre for Book Arts, these artists and makers share a spirit of curiosity and resilience. They not only adapt to new ways that readers engage with books, but are forging new possibilities for their craft along the way.




Crafting Warmth


Book Description

Step into a world where cold is merely a concept, not a discomfort. "Crafting Warmth" is not just a book; it is a compendium of centuries-old wisdom interwoven with cutting-edge science, an essential guide for anyone who has ever longed to conquer the chill of the wild and the frost of the mundane. Dive into the heart of insulated clothing with "Crafting Warmth," where each chapter unfurls a new layer of understanding, teaching you not only the history and science behind thermal wear, but also guiding your hands in crafting personalized warmth. Journey through the thoughtful analysis of insulation materials, from the time-honored wool to advanced synthetics and innovative technologies that are shaping the landscape of modern insulation. Brace yourself for a detailed exploration into the ergonomics of insulated clothing with practical guidance on crafting the perfect insulated jacket, navigating the complexities of insulated pants, and even piecing together the warmest gear for your hands and feet. And the investment in knowledge does not stop at apparel – discover the secrets to creating snug sleeping arrangements that promise restful nights under starlit skies. But "Crafting Warmth" isn't merely technical; it's a shrine to the art of cold-weather garment creation. The in-depth chapters entice you to tailor insulated footwear or design the ideal thermal vest to add a versatile core of warmth without the bulk. Accessories become allies against the cold as you learn to make earmuffs and scarves, combining function with fashion. As you near the culmination of this journey, "Crafting Warmth" equips you with skills to assess environmental conditions, layer effectively, and prepare an emergency insulation survival kit. And the wisdom trickles down to the youngest, teaching how to tailor insulated garments for children in a safe and engaging manner. The book closes with a future-focused lens, pondering ethical considerations in manufacturing and the remarkable potential of sustainable and smart textiles. Each chapter not only amplifies your knowledge but ignites a passion for the sustainable crafting community, pushing the boundaries of what it means to keep warm in an ever-changing climate. "Crafting Warmth" is your invitation to embrace a future that looks beyond comfort to self-sufficiency and environmental consciousness. It's about thriving in frigid temperatures with a heartwarming sense of responsibility. So throw on your coziest socks, settle in, and ready your crafting hands for a transformative expedition through the delightful world of insulated crafting.




Craft, Community and the Material Culture of Place and Politics, 19th-20th Century


Book Description

With object study at the core, this book brings together a collection of essays that address the past and present of craft production, its use and meaning within a range of community settings from the Huron Wendat of colonial Quebec to the Girls’ Friendly Society of twentieth-century England. The making of handcrafted objects has and continues to flourish despite the powerful juggernaut of global industrialization. By attending to the political histories of craft objects and their makers, over the last few centuries, these essays reveal the creative persistence of various hand mediums and the material debates they represented.




A Very Social Time


Book Description

"Based on an extraordinarily rich and varied collection of diaries, letters, and autobiographies of European Americans and African Americans, this book presents the voices and views of unpropertied, unprivileged people and sensitively probes the commonalities and differences in their experiences and perspectives. Hansen persuasively argues that recognizing the 'social' domain illuminates the agency of working people and dissolves the stereotypically gendered public/private dichotomy."—Nancy Grey Osterud, author of Bonds of Community "It is a pleasure to welcome Karen Hansen into the first rank of historical sociologists. In this superb model of scholarship, she leads us on an illuminating tour of the social life of literate working people in antebellum New England. Her arena is 'the social'—the territory that overlaps with private and public, where the dynamics of friendship, visiting, gossip, and collective worship combine to fashion many of life's great joys and sorrows. Best of all, she tells her story through the experiences of the people themselves. In a clear and honest way, Hansen manages to raise fundamental questions about perceived conceptions of gender, class, and the public-private dichotomy."—Neil J. Smelser, University of California, Berkeley "This wonderful book makes a real contribution to our understanding of the lives of women and men in antebellum New England. With its focus on people of modest means and its meticulous and insightful exploration of friendship, visiting, gossip, and church-going, Hansen's work refines and concretizes how we conceive the 'social.'"—Mary Ann Clawson, Wesleyan University "How refreshing it is to see someone address the big issues in sociology based on the experience of real people. Karen Hansen has valuable things to say about the limits of the public/private distinction and the importance of the social. Her book moves the discussion of these issues to a new level."—Alan Wolfe, author of The Human Difference




The Affect of Crafting


Book Description

The Affect of Crafting' presents an interrogation of materiality and crafting, a consideration of the situatedness of the technological practice of crafting itself, and the forms of relationships that exist between all things transformed in the act of crafting: bodies, minerals and landscapes.