Crafters With An Edge
Taking stitching, knitting, and crochet to Bad Girl heights
If you're fed up with cutesy flowered tea cozy patterns, sweet-bears-wearing bowties stitching packs, then these are the crafters for you.
Every crafting book available, it seems, wants to give you the instructions on how to do something the "proper" way. Sewing perfect darts, making your points match on quilts, crocheting without dropped stitches.
It's no surprise that there are people out there who like to colour outside the lines, and crafters, being the artists that they are, have taken their stitches and done what they want with them. There are fabulous women out there doing things the way they want to, and they are NOT your granny's patterns.
For example, visit Subversive Cross Stitch (http://www.subversivecrossstitch.com). Owner Julie Jackson opened it as a way to express her anger with an idiotic boss, and now offers cross stitch patterns that feature 'bad words' of all kinds, with the f-word featured on the popular anti-cancer kit. She's written and published a book, and made Stephen Colbert a Truthiness framed cross stitch that he sent her a hand-written thank you for.
Another crafting site that is not for the faint of heart is the Anti-Craft (http://www.theanticraft.com). Each edition features patterns you probably don't want to make for elderly or uptight family members, such as the Beanis. They even give difficulty levels for their patterns that range from 'Box of Rocks' (the easiest) to 'AntiCraft Superstar' (the most harrowing). And if you're up for it, you can submit your own patterns, articles, and tutorials through email.
You might not like it, but strong women have a voice too, and sometimes the words they use aren't the ones you'd expect to hear. With crafting enjoying such a huge rise in popularity it's natural that a more edgy uprising would follow.
And more power to them. These artists make sure that our crafts expand, develop, and warp... and continue on, through the centuries, learned from hand to hand.
