"The handmade movement has changed my life!"

http://www.brigitte.de/frauen/stimmen/handmade-bewegung-1226983/
Hi,
since I linked to an article a few months ago that demonized the DIY movement, I’m all the more pleased to have found an article here that presents the benefits of DIY in a well-balanced way. I think some of you readers here on the forum might relate to this—or maybe you’d like to take a look at the article and then share a few thoughts on it?
Sidney

Hello Sidney
the article is well written and includes many sensible points.
Nevertheless, it is sad how mothers and housewives are treated in Germany. In many cases, having children is comparable to leaving one’s profession, or at least to a serious setback. As far as I know, this is handled much better in Scandinavia. Here in Germany, the current situation is no invitation to have children.
Richard

This woman speaks to my soul. Great article!

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that DIY has changed my life. For me, it’s a relaxing hobby. The article is well-written, though, and makes a lot of good points.

For me, it’s a hobby—back in the day, I had other reasons for knitting my own sweaters.
No, I’ll never sell them, but people really appreciate them as gifts.

Hello to everyone in this thread. As a “hobbyist,” I can’t exactly say that crocheting or handmade DIY has changed my life. For me, crocheting and crafts have always been—and still are—just a hobby. It wasn’t until I joined this forum here at Crazypatterns that I learned that for some people, it’s much more than just a hobby—that some use it to supplement their household income or maybe even make a living from it. Of course, that depends on how intensively you pursue the craft itself or the creation of patterns.

I believe that you won’t get as far by taking on custom orders for handmade items as you will by creating patterns. After all, you write a pattern once, and then it’s sold for as long as there’s interest in it. A custom piece made to a customer’s specifications is also made just once and can only be sold exactly once. And I somehow don’t think customers really pay well for the labor on top of the materials. But maybe I’m wrong—does anyone want to share their thoughts on this?

The article Sidney linked to states that “handmade is the logical answer to mass production.” I completely agree. Anyone can get mass-produced items, maybe even from China or somewhere like that.

And over the past few months, there have been repeated reports in the press about the working conditions in factories in countries that specialize in manufacturing, for example, clothing for the “rich West.” Recently, there was that article about the tearful fashion bloggers who spent a week observing clothing production in a factory. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link anymore.

In that sense, DIY is a really clear response to this kind of thing. It’s a step toward refusing to consume, so as to no longer support such practices. I don’t know if completely refusing to consume—or buying absolutely nothing from these companies—is the answer. After all, the workers there need the money. So it would be better to pay them more and ensure healthy working conditions. That means we’d have to spend more money on clothing—or rather, not spend more money on clothing, but somehow ensure that it doesn’t all end up in the marketing budgets of the big brands, but actually ends up in the workers’ wallets. But the world has never been improved with nice words alone, so I don’t know if anything can be done about it. Besides, it wouldn’t be entirely feasible to completely stop buying clothes.
People who do DIY usually make amigurumi or decorations—maybe clothes every now and then—but DIY beginners in particular certainly won’t want to, or be able to, make their entire wardrobe themselves. But I think that’s straying a bit from the topic.

I find the idea interesting that upcycling could also be a form of refusing to consume. Theoretically, we wouldn’t need to, for example, crochet over old potato salad buckets just to turn them into a storage basket for the kids’ room. After all, there are plenty of pen holders to buy. The selection is large enough. Well, you could also say that anyone who makes their own potato salad doesn’t need to buy one and therefore doesn’t have a little tub lying around at home that they could—or would have to—crochet. But there are also large yogurt tubs. ; ) I have no idea whether upcycling leads people to pay closer attention to packaging design while shopping and to consciously seek out eco-friendly packaging. But I’m straying from the topic of the article again.

I just think the DIY discussion isn’t just about a few people—or actually, quite a lot of people—sitting at home and knitting. It’s, as the woman in the article says, a kind of lifestyle. Before I ended up here on the forum, I really had no idea how big all of this had become. For me, crafts were something you just did at home, and every now and then you’d buy some yarn. Back in the day, there used to be sewing circles and things like that, but I thought nobody does that anymore. And then you go online and just start paying attention to these kinds of things. And suddenly you realize there are tons of videos on YouTube about DIY, knitting, crocheting, and everything else—patterns are being bought and sold on sites like Crazypatterns. For a long time, I thought those craft magazines with the patterns were only sold at newsstands or in magazine stores—and that only grandmas bought them.

You just don’t really have a clue about it until you start getting into it, and then you see it everywhere. ; )

What I wanted to mention above is that handmade—or hand-knitted or hand-crocheted—wasn’t really considered chic for a long time. Everything had to be bought, and above all, it had to be from a well-known brand or something like that. But I think we’re slowly moving away from that—maybe partly because vintage fashion is so popular. I haven’t quite figured out yet whether “vintage” just refers to things that look like they’re from earlier times or if they actually are. And I’m not entirely clear on the difference between vintage and secondhand, either. But oh well, I’ll just Google that later.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that the variety of clothing styles is so vast right now—and since everything in fashion kind of comes back around anyway—that you can just put together your own style, and of course you can incorporate handmade elements if you want to, or even throw in a style clash every now and then. A chunky-knit scarf with an otherwise elegant outfit, for example. If you’re brave enough to pull it off. ; ) I think French women even do it on purpose so they don’t look overdressed at fancy events. So they’ll just pair a fancy evening gown with a pair of sneakers or something like that. So basically, there’s room again for handmade items in this colorful mix of styles—even when it comes to what you wear.

Somehow, I don’t think the DIY movement will fizzle out anytime soon. Once it’s all out there on the internet—with videos, websites, shops, and everything—it’ll probably stick around for a while. The demand is definitely there. 

Oh no, because it was so long, I copied it into Word, finished writing it there, and now all the formatting is gone.
@Mod: Could you maybe add a few paragraph breaks or something? I’ll send you the doc with the post, and you can put the paragraph breaks back in?
That would be really great.

Hello again after a long silence,
I’d like to revive this old topic, as it would be nice to read more opinions on it.
 

DIY is great, but it hasn’t turned my life upside down. For me, though, it’s just a hobby—nothing more.

What do you mean by the “handmade movement”? People used to call it something else, but it’s always been around.

If you call it “needlework” or “crafting,” though, it’s no longer enough for an article in an online magazine, so you need a nice term with an Anglicism :)