Skip to main content

Abstract

This chapter considers handcraft, an intimate, reflective—and reflexive—activity through which generations of women have made sense of their lives, as a site of theory making. Bringing together scholarship on knitting, cooking, quilting, and craftivism, it asserts that handcraft, as process-oriented work, is a form of both life writing and theory making through which we stitch ourselves and our thinking into being.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Black, Shannon. 2017. KNIT + RESIST: Placing the pussyhat project in the context of craft activism. Gender, Place and Culture 24 (5): 696–710. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1335292.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boon, Sonja, and Beth Pentney. 2017. Knitting the feminist self: Craftivism, yarn-bombing and the navigation of feminist spaces. In Global currents in gender and feminisms: Canadian and international perspectives, ed. Glenda Tibe Bonifacio, 21–34. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bratich, Jack Z., and Heidi M. Brush. 2011. Fabricating activism: Craft-work, popular culture, gender. Utopian Studies 22 (2): 233–260. https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.22.2.0233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chansky, Ricia A. 2010. A stitch in time: Third-wave feminist reclamation of needled imagery. Journal of Popular Culture 43 (4): 681–700. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00765.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, Kyra. 2016. Willful knitting? Contemporary Australian craftivism and feminist hisotries. Continuum 30 (3): 298–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2016.1166557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cullum, Linda. 1995. ‘A woman’s place’: The work of two women’s voluntary organizations in Newfoundland, 1934–1941. In Their lives and times: Women in Newfoundland and Labrador: A collage, ed. Carmelita McGrath, Marilyn Porter, and Barbara Neis, 93–108. St. John’s: Killick Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duley, Tryphena Chancey. 1916. A pair of grey socks. St. John’s.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elinor, Gillian, et al., eds. 1987. Women and craft. London: Virago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fields, Corey D. 2014. Not your grandma’s knitting: The role of identity processes in the transformation of cultural practices. Social Psychology Quarterly 77 (2): 150–165. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272514523624.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greer, Betsy. 2008. Knitting for good! A guide to creating personal, social, and political change, stitch by stitch. Boston: Trumpeter.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———, ed. 2014. Craftivism: The art of craft and activism. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Groeneveld, Elizabeth. 2010. ‘Join the knitting revolution’: Third-wave feminist magazine and the politics of domesticity. Canadian Review of American Studies 40 (2): 259–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harling Stalker, L. Lynda. 2006. She seeketh wool: Newfoundland women’s use of handknitting. In Weather’s edge: Women in Newfoundland and Labrador, ed. Marilyn Porter, Linda Cullum, and Carmelita McGrath, 209–218. St. John’s: Killick Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heldke, Lisa M. 1988. Recipes for theory making. Hypatia 3 (2): 15–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1988.tb00066.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1992. Foodmaking as a thoughtful practice. In Cooking, eating, thinking: Transformative philosophies of food, ed. Deane W. Curtin and Lisa M. Heldke, 203–229. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • House, Edgar. 1990. The way out: The story of NONIA in Newfoundland, 1920–1990. St. John’s: Creative Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, Maura. 2014. Knitting as a feminist project? Women’s Studies International Forum 44: 133–144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2013.10.011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luckman, Susan. 2013. The aura of analogue in a digital age: Women’s crafts, creative markets and home-based labour after Etsy. Cultural Studies Review 19 (1): 249–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Phebe Florence. 1916. The knitting Marianna. In The distaff, ed. Mabel W. LeMessurier, 10. St. John’s: The Royal Gazette.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newfoundland Outport Nursing and Industrial Association. 1963. A short history of NONIA. St. John’s: NONIA Gift Shop.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker, Roszika. 2011. The subversive stitch: Embroidery and the making of the feminine. London: I.B.Tauris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pentney, Beth Ann. 2008. Feminism, activism, and knitting: Are the fibre arts a viable mode for feminist political action? Thirdspace: A Journal of Feminist Theory and Culture 8 (1). http://journals.sfu.ca/thirdspace/index.php/journal/article/viewArticle/pentney/210. Accessed 10 Jan 2018.

  • Prain, Leanne. 2014. Strange material: Storytelling through textiles. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, Sally. 2015. On femmage. E-misférica 12 (1). http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/emisferica-121-caribbean-rasanblaj/price. Accessed 28 Dec 2017.

  • Schapiro, Miriam, and Melissa Meyer. 1978. Waste not want not: An inquiry into what women saved and assembled—FEMMAGE. Heresies 1 (4): 66–69.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. 2010. Reading autobiography: A guide for interpreting life narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Springgay, Stephanie. 2010. Knitting as an aesthetic of civic engagement: Reconceptualizing feminist pedagogy through touch. Feminist Teacher 20 (2): 111–123. https://doi.org/10.5406/femteacher.20.2.0111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Springgay, S., Nikki Hatza, and Sarah O’Donald. 2011. ‘Crafting is a luxury that many women cannot afford’: Campus knitivism and an aesthetic of civic engagement. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 24 (5): 607–613. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2011.600262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaccaro, Jeanne. 2010. Felt matters. Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 20 (3): 253–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. Feelings and fractals: Wooly ecologies of transgender matter. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21 (2–3): 273–293. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2843347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warren, Gale Denise. 1998. The Patriotic Association of the Women of Newfoundland: 1914–18. Aspects: A Publication of the Newfoundland Historical Society 33 (2): 23–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Voluntarism and patriotism: Newfoundland women’s war work during the First World War. MA Thesis, Memorial University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, K.A. 2011. ‘Old time mem’ry’: Contemporary urban craftivism and the politics of doing-it-yourself in postindustrial America. Utopian Studies 22 (2): 303–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Boon, S., Butler, L., Jefferies, D. (2018). Histories: Stitching Theory. In: Autoethnography and Feminist Theory at the Water's Edge. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90829-8_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90829-8_13

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90828-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90829-8

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics