This Is Hand Made

Penny Nickels is a renegade embroiderer with a new online project. She's collecting videos of craftspeople working to show the world that professional crafting is not "fun" or "a hobby". If you can make a five minute vid of yourself working - not a tutorial, not talking about your work, just doing the damn thing - she'd love to include it on her site.

From Penny's blog:

Do you make stuff? Are you an artist? A crafter? Have you ever spent 40 hours on a project, only to be offered 20 dollars for all of your hard work? I think it's because most buyers don't understand how long it takes to make stuff. I think it's because buyers think what we do is "fun", so somehow, we haven't earned a fair hourly wage.

The truth is, this stuff takes forever. Hours and hours and hours. In my experience, only about 10% of it is actually fun. The rest is tedious and demanding...

So I've started a new blog called This Is Hand Made. All it is is 5 minute videos of people working on projects. No tutorials, no guides, no talking to the camera, no explaining, just 5 really really boring minutes of what it looks like to actually make something. I only have three up so far, but I want more!

If you make stuff, I want to see it. Especially the boring parts that you have to thole through to complete the project. I don't care if you're a knitter, a cobbler, a mosaic maker, whatever. Did it take you 2 minutes to thread that needle/bobbin? Perfect. Did it take you 2 hours to scour that fleece? Yes. Did it take you an hour to warp that loom? THIS SPEAKS TO MY INTERESTS.

Find out more here.