So sorry I've not posted in ages - I've been busy actually doing lots of work and research these days rather than planning / talking / thinking about doing it!

Anyway here's the start of the findings - a timeline.

If you think there's something missing please let me know what year, what it is, and any relevant links. Obviously I can't include the arrival of every individual book, market, blog, website, article, fair etc but if you can persuade me its some sort of key milestone I'll do my best to slot it in. For example I know the advent of the Make and Craft mags / blogs needs including yet.

Also it doesn't have links yet but I will be doing these soon - I thought it would just be good to get it up here asap while I finish tinkering about with it.

Another section from the research project...

GENDER STORIES

Whilst Rozika Parker (The Subversive Stitch) and Debbie Stoller (Bust / Stitch n Bitch) found their initial interest ignited by feminist approaches, and women provide a historical thread through which skills are developed and creative identities created in this field, gender assumptions are being challenged on both sides in DIY craft.

Original punk Greg der Ananian set up his alternative craft fair Bizarre Bazaar and created an accompanying book Bizarre Bazaar: Not Your Granny's Craft which includes parental advisory slogans and motifs. Men's public knitting groups are also starting up across the US under deliberately masculine names and include the tongue-in-cheek Stitch n Pitch series of events based on knitting groups at baseball games.

Much of the DIY craft 'history' evolves from feminist theory – the reanalysis of the values of textile production, domestic homecrafts, and the private / public places and spaces of women. This is already well documented.

However an interesting point is a parallel masculine history which carries much of the same lines of enquiry, and leads to many of the same parallel positions today. Like Rozika Parker's re-evaluation of the relationships between restriction, women's roles and needlework crafts, Shove and Watson suggest that DIY moved from

"a largely unwanted responsibility being increasingly thrust on male householders, to a desirable pastime for a man, enabling release from alienated paid work through being a part-time craftsman."[1]

I.e. that these roles once thought to be obstructive drudgery imposed on men or women, depending on their situation, are now being revisited and reclaimed through choice.

Where once 10 or more years ago men would have felt put upon to tackle DIY, and women patronised by the suggestion that they might choose to take up needle based craft, now the option that they might choose to do so is being embraced – that actually such activity is a marker of what has made a woman's identity what it is today. Women are more increasingly recognising that taking up these crafts can link them to their own private histories, to their individual identities shaped by mothers, grandmothers and beyond.

"We are taking back craftyness from what we remember as kids – all my mum's dresses were handmade, and my grandmother sewed all of her clothing."[2]

"There are many people who grew up like me, with mothers who had been taught all these craft skills by their mothers. So many of us had those skills lying dormant for years, after rejecting everything our parents taught us as teenagers. We've come back to it, in part because of social and political ideas."[3]

At the same time women (and men) are acknowledging, as Rozika Parker suggested, that the development of these skills enables them to fulfil other needs, be they personal, physical, intellectual, creative, communal, political, societal and indeed financial. For some women what starts as 'dabbling' becomes a career which can be shaped on an individual's own terms, working whatever hours and from whatever space fits in with their other priorities, in a way which few other professions can. For this reason DIY craft is often discovered and populated by mothers who are finding it allows them the freedom to work on their own terms. Other makers (male and female) are choosing to spend more time on DIY crafts for the same reason – balancing it with part time work so they have greater control over their working / life balance, and in some cases giving up other full time professions entirely to focus on making precisely because of the freedom it affords them.

Whilst the freedom of a work / life balance is one motivator, for others it is the very opportunity to challenge gender stereotypes which is the pull. Some women use the opportunity to challenge the notion that needlecraft– or craft in general – is loaded with 'feminine' characteristics. They choose radical, industrial materials, use subversive slogans, choose technological imagery and component parts, include ironic or political statements in their work and so on – using any opportunity to subvert traditional notions of what craft is. This is one characteristic of DIY crafts which is perhaps not evident in any other craft form.

Men are using the movement to challenge the idea that crafts should be dominated either by women or by feministic characteristics, as the male knitting groups above demonstrate. It is interesting that men are choosing to use these textile based craft forms traditionally associated specifically with women to change assumptions. However the presence of print in DIY craft also sees an increasing male presence merge amongst makers, with zines and screen printing being popular formats for production by men in the DIY craft world. Again these carry qualities typical of DIY crafts such as irony, satire, political opinion, kitsch, and references to popular culture icons and anti-heroes.

The second extract from my DIY research report, following on from the Potted History

ABOUT TEXTILES

The DIY craft movement is dominated by textile activity. 74% of UK DIY craft makers surveyed currently work with textiles, with 52% citing fabric as their main source material, and 61% listing the sewing machine as one of their making tools (all three results were the highest percentages in their individual categories). The potted history post shows why and how this has come about with the knit and stitch leading the way in the emergence of the movement.

Though other factors include the ways in which crafters pick up their skill and knowledge – often through family members in the first place – being taught to sew or knit by mothers or grandmothers at an early age then revisiting the interest later on.

"I got my crafting inclinations from my mother, who taught me to knit and sew when I was quite young[1]".

                                                                               
Also these activities can be taken up at little or no cost with the right tools being very easily available both second hand and in main stream shops. In contrast to other craft practices, no specialist knowledge or space is needed, and no great expense need be involved. Textile and needlecrafts can be picked up easily, cheaply and quickly, are portable and can take place anywhere, anytime.

As of April 2007, there were 108 official Stitch N Bitch groups in the UK (i.e. registered on the Stitch n Bitch website), with the highest proportion taking place in the North West of England:

Ireland - 4
Scotland – 7

Wales – 6
England – 91 (including 14 in London; 18 in NW)

This doesn't include the many other groups based on this model which aren't registered or go by a different name.

A quick note to flag up another DIY craft market happening this Sat 10th Feb in Glasgow. Miso Funky are presenting the event between 3 and 8pm. More details here...

This Friday sees another Pretty Crafty Things bazaar in Leeds. The organisers have kindly agreed to let me take some surveys over and take pictures at the event as part of my research.

This is the first of several similar events I'll be attending to talk to DIY craft makers about what they do and why they do it, enabling me to test some of my conclusions, thoughts, assumptions and so on; as well as hopefully starting the search for some makers whose work really characterises the nature of  DIY crafts.

I'm hoping this will be a really useful pilot for the other events I'll be going to over the next couple of months which include:
Miso Funky in Glasgow on Feb 10th
Craft Night at Notting Hill Arts Centre on March 12th
Hip Hip Handmade on March 24th

I've also submitted a proposal for an article in the US publication Craft: around the findings of my research later in Spring, and I'll be hoping to submit more proposals to other craft publications over the next few weeks.

If you're a DIY crafter, subversive stitcher, zine maker, Etsy seller, reader of Craft: or Make:, part of Craftster, Craftermath or anything else in the contemporary alternative craft world and you're based in the UK I would really appreciate your help. **Please send me a message requesting the survey and return it to me by the end of February - it only takes 5 minutes.**

Huge thanks to everyone contributing to the research. 

I was unsure about how useful or relevant it would be from reviews. I'd got the impression it would be just for graphic design buffs but the title seemed so relevant to my research I had to have it. It's true it is very dominated by graphic design themes, but then it is produced by staff and students of the Graphic Design MFA at Maryland Institute College of Art. 

However I was pleasantly surprised by the wide range of ways graphics ideas had been developed and diluted in and amongst all sorts of formats. It was just what I needed to help break out of the textiles cloud I've been in the past couple of weeks and think about other media; formats I'd considered early on whilst forming this research project and since buried at the back of my memory. I'm now expanded again to include zines, print and stationary. Textiles are featured too of course, but as a place to apply print rather than a creative medium in itself.

What disappointed me about the book however, was its limited realisation of some of the qualities it discussed in the initial theoretical pages. Whilst the foreword and early essays discussed in depth the notions of sharing and tutorials as a quality of DIY culture, and the existence of the 'movement' outside the institutional and academic worlds, in reality the 'how to' pages dominating the book were less generous and community spirited.

For me this is where the book falls down – having established the value of generosity and community spirit prevalent in DIY culture in sharing step-by-step tutorials, it doesn't follow through in its own execution. Suggestions of what and how to make tend to boil down to ' you can make stickers, design them on your computer then print them on sheets of labels, or have a printer make them for you – if they're for outside get them laminated'. (Just one example of course, similar simplifications of stationary, logos, digital publishing, t-shirts, bags, wall vinyls, websites and zines are also included).

It assumes a certain level of prior knowledge about techniques, equipment and suppliers, and that your best option is to outsource actual production to industry. These implications sit in opposition to the types of content available through online sharing where links to suppliers are included, options for different types and applications of materials are suggested, step-by-step images and explanations are offered. Where a person could fulfil the full process from idea to production by hand in their own home if they wanted.

I liked the book overall but another characteristic of DIY craft culture I want to explore more fully another day is the 'who'. I believe that DIY craft culture works because anyone can do it, regardless of their academic, social or economic background. I wonder if the same anyone could pick up this book and really make the most of it, or whether in fact it can ever break free of being anchored by university structures. By that I mean -  if academic organisations demonstrate that understanding and activity in a field doesn't require training practically or intellectually, where does that leave universities? Ultimately there is a necessity for universities to protect their own interests and cultural values, all of which is the antithesis of where DIY craft culture sits. 

That said, if I was scouring the book for general inspiration and had a working knowledge of a good range of techniques and materials to fall back on as many of its readers will, instead of exploring it critically in the context of this research, I wouldn't have any complaints. And I'm sure some of its ideas and suggestions will lodge in my mind and re-emerge in a project one day without me even realising.