When we speak of “fabriculture” or craft culture, we are referring to a whole range of practices usually defined as the “domestic arts”: knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, quilting, embroidery, sewing, doll-making. More than the actual handicraft, we are referring to the recent popularization and resurgence of interest in these crafts, especially among young women, as the more explicitly activist (or craftivist) versions such as Cast Off, Anarchist Knitting Circle, MicroRevolt, Anarchist Knitting Mob, Revolutionary Knitting Circle, and Craftivism. In addition, a whole range of cultural forms fall in between these poles, such as the virtual knitting circles and crafting blogs, as well as the association with (post)feminism in the pages of Bitch and Bust magazines. When we use the term craft-work, we are specifically referring to the laboring practices involved in crafting, while fab- riculture speaks to the broader practices (meaning-making, communicative, community-building) intertwined with this (im)material labor.2-formed from guild to factory, from artisan work to industrial labor, from use value to exchange value. But it was not just the “handicraft” that became systematized and eventually automated in the loom.3 The communal craft circle—the ability to produce a community through production and dis- tribution of the object (within the family, as gift, as public sign)—was also captured by capital. The revival of craft-work and fabriculture is in some ways a revival of this original mutational moment.Craft culture can even be regarded as a direct response to this pervasive and oppressive form of craft-work (Campbell 2005; MicroRevolt 2006).The collaborative aspects of craft culture reappropriate the collective qualities of sweatshop labor, but without the exploitative discipline and hierarchical forms.Women and weaving can almost be interchangeable Crafting does not belong to the home any more than it does the factory.From commercial sites to virtual knitting circles (or knit-alongs), the new domesticity is thoroughly an online affair. But other knitting blogs position themselves against this old domestic- ity, preferring hip and edgy aesthetics, with names like Extreme Knitter.Knitting blogs expose the dark side of knitting—addiction and excessive consumption. The usage of the word “stash”.The typical association is masculinity/digital culture and femininity/fabriculture. The DIY craft culture, however, complicates this gendered binary. cyberfeminism.The moment you start thinking about your creative produc- tion as more than just a hobby or ‘women’s work,’ and instead as something that has cultural, historical and social value, craft becomes something stron- ger than a fad or trend” (2006).Craftivism: more activist component. S/he collective, revolutionary knitting circle, anarchism knitting mob, create public events such as knit-ins and massive knit NYC. (246) Crocheted wombs in Washington to show the labor of making textiles and clothes .Craftivism is more than craft and activism — it’s about making your own creativity a force to be reckoned with “ (248) stronger than a fad or trend Craft culture makes of think of a basic bifurcations, private/public space, past/present, technology old/new, , and others liek masculine/feminine, technology/craft, folk/popular, production/ reproduction, innovation/repetition, amateur/professional, network/ web, art/craft ,teacher/student, producer/ consumer (254)
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