It seems that in the last years young women have re-discovered the feminine arts, and the greatest things is that now the boys are joining us!
I attended a Catholic school where I received medium-advanced classes on knitting, crocheting, sewing, baking and whatnot. During my university years I made a point of not doing any of that, it seemed antiquated, “un-feminist”. Now in my late 30s I have a more nuanced view of feminism and have re-embraced what I learned in school, not because knitting a pair of socks is cheaper than buying a half-dozen pack, but because I enjoy the work, and I end up with something unique.
Is it confirmation bias, or is there a growth in popularity for the feminine arts, a renewed appreciation for handmade items? Or was it always there and I just happened to notice now?
My sisters have always been into crochetting, knotting, etc. And my niece, who is now 17 and plans to go to engineering school, has a sewing machine, a surger, and goes to cooking classes most weekends. I don’t do any needlework, but I like to bake.
I can tell you that the people I see knitting in public, including myself, fall into two (2) categories: a) little old ladies, and b) twentysomethings of assorted genders with piercings and unnatural hair colours.
My mother, who is long since retired, started doing “Home Shop” classes a few years ago and gets a lot of late twenties early thirties women and guys. Among the non-related women I know (same age bracket), all but one has taken up some baking/sewing/knitting class (or started on their own) and there are some guys in the classes. I, cynically, figured the guys were there to meet chicks instead of joining softball leagues or the like.
The thought never really crossed my mind that women taking up hobbies like these post-college wasn’t completely normal or guys are doing so in a serious manner until you posted this thread.
When I worked for Hancock Fabrics one store in the district consistently had the highest yarn sales in yarn. When I tried to find out what they were doing right, they told me they were located right in between a neighborhood with a lot of older immigrant ladies and a college. So they were getting the best of both worlds, the ones who had done these things all their lives and the ones who had just discovered them.
I think it’s always been there, but it’s becoming more popular right now, and it’s hit a more visible part of the population. For a while there it was mostly the hippies and old ladies, now it’s the cool kids.
I learned to knit last year, taught by my best friend, who taught herself how to knit. Beforehand I’d never had any desire to be crafty, but since I’ve learned to knit I’ve become more and more intrigued with traditionally feminine handicrafts. Oh, and another (male) friend can sew!
Where I grew up, the good girls still all learned how to knit and sew. Those skills were apparently maintained enough that most of the girls in my high school just had their mothers make the dresses for the school dances. I sucked at all the needle arts. I didn’t learn to knit properly until a few years ago, although I finally mastered the sewing machine right out of high school. I would guess in some parts of the world it’s a craft resurgence, in others, it’s business as usual.
I think these things are cyclical. In the 70s it was embroidery. In the 80s it was cross stitch. Its been knitting for a while - and beadwork - quilting seems to be getting bigger again (the issue with anything requiring a sewing machine is it isn’t portable).
My daughter (all of nine years old) is a member of the Weavers Guild of Minnesota. Those classes are becoming a lot more popular - though few people stick with it because a floor loom tends to be a pricey thing.
I’m 33. In my mothers era, women learned to sew because they had to; they weren’t allowed to take shop in high school – sewing and knitting were “what women did” after all. There was a backlash against such activities because they were forced to do them and because they were part of a package of “stereotypical femininity” that 70s era feminists were actively rejecting.
Their daughters took up handwork hobbies voluntarily, without having the feelings that they were tools of the patriarchy. In many cases, they learned their skills from their grandmothers, or, more typically, peer social groups (but rarely their mothers).
When I opened this thread, I was expecting a much much more different idea of the “Feminine Arts” sad to say.
That said, yeah it’s kinda wierd, when I was in college, i noticed quite often there would be females and a guy or two sitting around lounging and just knitting. I thought it was kind of unusual, and then when i went home, i discovered that my own sister suddenly in the year I was gone had taken up knitting as well! It blew my mind as it was all within 1-2 years that I went from knowing no one who knit (in highschool) to suddenly being surrounded by “stich n’ bitch” sorts of people.
In truth, it wasn’t “un-feminist.” Feminist philosophy in general held and holds that both genders should be free to develop their talents – whatever they are. There is no reason that knitting, crocheting, sewing and baking should be considered a woman’s domain. Further, the more complex and beautifully designed products should be given their just respect as works of art and not just “crafts.” A beautifully designed and cut quilt where every tiny stitch is handsewn can be and incredible work of art! So can a needlepoint and a well-made dress. And think what can be done in a kitchen!
If there was a fall off in being active in crocheting and knitting, that may have had to do with what was in style rather than the women’s movement. Or maybe many women were busy with a greater variety of activities than before.
I was of the generation that was forced to take sewing. I didn’t like that, but I loved crocheting and needlepoint. I drifted away from both of them, but it didn’t have anything to do with the feminist movement. In fact, I think that the movement may have lead to an interest in natural homemade or handwoven items, but I have no proof of that.
I crocheted a lot when I was in junior high (late '60s) and did some embroidery. Did needlework only sporadically during my late teens and twenties, but picked it up again once I was done with school, and have been a pretty steady needleworker for the last 25 years or so. Did needlepoint for a long time (mostly designing my own projects), but got tired of finishing projects and doing nothing more with them than throwing them in a box, so I (re)took up knitting about a year and a half ago. Am finishing my third sweater and just bought yarn for my fourth.
My girlfriends were all together and I mentioned I’d darned a sock. I wouldn’t darn the 3 for $5 Target socks, but this was a SmartWool sock - I paid a lot for this sock (four years ago…). One of my other girfriends said she’d darned one last week - again a similar circumstance - a fairly expensive sock. So we were explaining how to darn.
I bought a huge box of vintage sewing notions on eBay. There comes this wooden… thing. I was intrigued. Hmm… cooking implement? sex toy? Google informed me it was a darning egg.
A darning what?
I’ve never darned anything. Maybe my mom, who grew in what would be the equivalent of the Dominican Depression did.
Born 1961 [ok, so i have a couple tattoos, large gauge piercings in my ears, and occasionally hair colored something not normally found in nature]
My grandmother taught me to do all sorts of sewing, ranging from every embroidery stitch you can think of, lacemaking [needle and reticella] handsewing [i find it easier to do a lot of stuff by hand instead of dragging out a sewing machine. I do entire elizabethans or italian renns by hand.] the sort of spiffy cutwirk and raised padded embroidery you find on fine irish and belgian linens. I can spin with wheel or drop spindle, weave on a backstrap, warpweighted, table or floor loom, I can do tablet weaving, lucet cord weaving, assorted forms of beadwork.
I can bake breads, pastries and can make puff pastry by hand, I can cook pretty much anything you want to dig up, pull off a tree, or bash on the head and drag in.
All things considered, I am pretty handy when it comes to being girly =)
I grew up in the “all girls have to take home ec and all boys have to take shop” era, but I lucked into a world-class sewing teacher, who in one semester in 7th grade taught us everything we would ever need for a lifetime of good sewing. Machine work, hand stitching (we had to do a fabric workbook of 30 or so different hand stitches, including buttonholes, blanket stitch, blind hem, French seaming, etc.), finishing – you name it, she taught us how to do it. I wasn’t so fortunate on the cooking front; I mostly learned how nasty it is to have to eat your results when one of your cooking partners left a key ingredient out of whatever it is you were cooking.
I then became a self-taught knitter in about 1976 or '77. For years it was difficult to find nice yarn; now it’s everywhere. I also did a variety of other types of embroidery and knotwork and learned to crochet, but kept returning to knitting. Today, between lovely yarn shops and the internet, I can get just about any kind of yarn there is (and, unfortunately for my wallet, have), and I knit in public constantly. I’m neither a old lady nor pierced (except for one hole in each ear).
If this is a renaissance of the feminine arts, I’m all for it. Although I must point out that what we consider as traditional feminine arts were once upon a time the province of men only; women only started doing them when the men moved on to bigger and better things. And in many parts of the world, all children learn things like basic knitting and cooking in school; I guess it’s considered part of a complete education. I’m just glad I can find so many lovely yarns these days, and people (or online videos) to answer any knitting question I could possibly have!
A couple of weeks ago while volunteering at my kids’ school, I got into a conversation with one of the students about a chair which was sitting there with a split fabric padding. We were talking about various ways it could be replaced/recovered. Then I mentioned that it was small enough that it could probably be darned right where it was sitting without too much trouble. She asked what darning was so I laughed and told her. She asked if I could teach her to do it so I said sure, bring your socks next week and we’ll fix the chair after you have worked out how to do it.
The teacher stopped me in the hallway the next day, evidently half the class wanted in on the action. So we had to schedule darning class. How darning got such a buzz, I have no idea. I chalked it up to all that handwork they do in Montessori.
By the time we got ready to fix the chair it was taken away and replaced, alas. It did however give me an opportunity to spout off about recycling, the throwaway approach to life, and so on.
One of the girls now wants me to teach her how to sew. I may do it, I have no real objection except that I don’t really know how myself – I learned originally because I am a very small person and clothes never fit me. I never had a class in it or anything like it. She would probably be better off in a real class.
These kids are all in fifth and sixth grades. Maybe it really is widespread, It does seem to be a novelty thing, though.
I’m 51, and indeed, in one high school I wasn’t allowed to take shop class. My counsellor and my mother enrolled me in Home Ec, against my wishes. About the only thing I learned in HE was how to write a check. I already knew how to cook and sew, and the class never covered how to knit or crochet. I had learned knitting and crocheting and tatting out of a book, and later various older women would see me and give me hints on how to improve my work. I’ve always enjoyed the various feminine arts, I just resented the fact that I was forced to take this class when I didn’t feel that I needed it. Incidentally, in this high school (in Springfield, Misery) girls were encouraged to take a year of home ec instead of a year of science. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: Because, you know, girls didn’t NEED to know that much science. Never mind that I was good at science and I enjoyed it.
In another high school, I was allowed to take wood shop. My teacher hated the fact that girls were allowed in shop class, and had never given a girl an A for the class, before me. He admired my work, and the fact that I wouldn’t let the guys carry my materials and projects around, as most of the other girls would. In this high school, I had to take another year of science to graduate, because they didn’t allow girls to substitute a year of home ec for science.
I’d like to see a mandatory “life skills” sort of class in junior high and high school. This class would cover things like balancing a bank account, making a budget, sewing a button back on, hammering a nail back in, using toothpicks and glue to fill in an overlarge screwhole and then replacing the screw, time management, things of that nature. Things that adults need to know, but sometimes have never been taught.