Blair Stocker - Wise Craft: Turning Thrift Store Finds, Fabric Scraps, and Natural Objects Into Stuff You Love

Copyright 2014 by Our Little Book Company

Photographs by EJ Armstrong

Published by Running Press,

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013943532

E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-5183-8

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

Cover and interior design by Susan Van Horn

Illustrations by Lisa Congdon

Edited by Kristen Green Wiewora

Typography: Mr. Eaves, Matchmaker, Gotham, and Rockford

Running Press Book Publishers

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Philadelphia, PA 191034371

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To Peter, Emma, and Ian, who taught me how a house can be a home.

And to Mom Fletcher, who taught me how to make it homemade.

CONTENTS

EJ Armstrong: Thank you for a truly wonderful collaboration. All those days playing around with ideas in your studio, and look at this! Your photography expertise and advice are invaluable!

Lisa Congdon: Your beautiful illustrations brought a new level of inspiration to these projects. Thank you, friend.

Peter, Emma, and Ian: Thank you will never be enough. You make me want to be better at everything I do, and always give me the best kind of advice (and the best hugs).

Jennifer: You truly are the best friend a girl could have. Thank you for always, always making the time to give advice and guidance.

Kristen and everyone at Running Press: Thank you for your expert guidance and belief in what this book could be.

Lisa Solomon: Thank you for taking valuable time from your own work to pattern test for me. You are wonderful.

Yi-Lin Lui: Thank you for providing your talent for the Gathering Bag project.

To friends who have been there for advice, guidance, and support for me as I was writing this book: Melissa Franz, Erin Harris, Christiane Zweifler, Amy Karol, Emily Demsky, Xiaonan Wang, and countless others. The support you all give means so much more than you know.

A huge, heartfelt thank you to the readers and supporters of Wise Craft. Thank you for being there, for making things with me, for being inspired by my corner of the world. This book would not be possible without you.

A beloved old wool coat becomes a checkers set for the family. Outgrown or worn-through jeans are transformed into a beautiful and functional quilt. Branches gathered on a family walk become hooks to hold coats and bags. Wise Craft is about looking at your belongings with new eyes. Its about nurturing creativity by using less and appreciating more.

Throughout history, people have treasured handmade items. Even today, when many of our valuables are disposable and mass-produced, cookie-cutter material goods, there is a large segment of society that remains devoted to ancient ideals of handcrafting. There is an innate desire to create items by hand, to build a more personal connection to our possessions and surroundings. Combine this artistic sensibility with the modern awareness of repurposing and reusing, and you have Wise Craft.

I started my website Wise Craft in 2005 to share my story of handcrafting online. I never imagined it would inspire such a devoted and global following. Clearly, I am not alone in my passion for making unique, visually pleasing objects from existing materials. My goal is simply to make things that I like or can use and my inspiration almost always starts with something Ive purchased secondhand or pulled from my closet or basement. I find that the process of creating something new from a tired or neglected item makes it feel more special, more intentional. I am not militantly green or obsessed with thrift. I just find that creating original pieces from gathered goods gives me a more personal connection to my surroundings and environment. It establishes a sense of value: of place, of family, of personal history.

I started handcrafting as a child, alongside my maternal grandmother. Under her guidance, I learned gardening, baking, knitting, and an appreciation for making things with my hands. I took to it immediately and felt a great sense of satisfaction discovering what I could create at a very early age. I rediscovered handcrafting when I became a mother. It has helped me connect with my kids and to nurture my own maternal role as keeper of family memories and traditions.

Never is my mind calmer than when I am sewing strips of fabric for a quilt, counting crochet stitches, or drawing in my sketchbook. Ideas, colors, patterns, and materials have become ways I express myself artistically. My kids are now old enough to appreciate the industry, creativity, beauty, and value of items in our home. And with each handmade addition to our household, I am bettering our surroundings, not just adding another cheap imported knickknack to the local landfill. Each stitch of what I make matters. It is part of our home, part of who I am, of who we are as a family. And there is something utterly satisfying knowing that the DNA of our home and lifestyle is not bought from a store shelf but meticulously stitched, snipped, and glued together by hand.

Because each season brings a sense of change and new inspiration for me creatively, there are four season-specific sections in this book, each with a distinctive color palette to draw inspiration from. Within each of these seasonal stories, there are a variety of projects, some doable in an afternoon or less, and some that require a little more time and thought. However, there is no need to confine the projects to the seasonal section they are in. The projects here are yours to adapt to any time of year, in any way that fits your own creative world. I hope you find inspiration from these projects and craft your own body of work, born from your own hands.