Busy busy busy

That’s me, Miss Busy Bee. I’ve been learning how to knit, realizing that knitting can be an expensive hobby, switching over to sewing, embroidery and crazy quilting [MUCH cheaper], and discovering a vibrant, thriving web community of crafters.

AND… I got an idea for a book about this community of crafters. I love to create books. I love crafts. I’ll never be a good enough crafter to write a how-to book using my own projects, but I can certainly make a book that showcases other crafters, thanks to print-in-demand services like Lulu and Blurb.

This is what I’ve been moving toward for years. In fact, I had this very idea over twenty years ago — to write a book showcasing the work of craftspeople around the country — but we didn’t have the Internet then. Or practically free ways to self-publish high-quality books. Things have changed a LOT since then thanks to the web. Not only has the Internet allowed the technology to make publishing possible with almost no money, but it has also fostered many large and small communities of crafters–knitters, embroiderers, and quilters, to name a few from all over the world–who would never have found each other without it. Many of them, like me, discovered and learned their crafts online.

I’ve spent the last month obsessively surfing these communities, finding deeper and deeper levels of amazingly gifted people–women, mostly–sharing with each other their love of making things by hand. I’m going to be sharing what I discover with you as I go about researching this labor of love.

It’s so perfect, I’m a little verklempt.