Crafting a better world Inspiration and DIY projects for craftivists

Diana Weymar is an artist and activist looking to make the world a better place one craft at a time. Sharing her personal stories of growing up in the 1970s, Weymar guides readers to creating a world as unique as they are. There are recipes (love cookies) and craft projects (come together blanket), but they do not make up the bulk of the book. Rather, Weymar's focus is on the intersection of art and activism, of the ways we can use crafts and other adaptable art practices to shape the world around us. Each chapter is told by a different author who shares their perspectives with readers--like an interview with cartoonist Roz Chast on crafting anxiety into art and a piece from ecologist Kira Hoffman on adapting Indigenous practices--all accompanied by many pictures of handcrafted projects. Reader-crafters will be empowered by Weymar's advice to express emotions of fear, anger, and sadness in response to the current state of our world by creating something meaningful and expressive.

Weymar--who in 2018 started the Tiny Pricks Project, which collects left-leaning, politically charged fabric art--debuts with a distinctive compendium in which activists reflect on art's role in their work. The strongest entries highlight how fabric art can contribute to activism. For instance, Jayna Zweiman discusses her Welcome Blanket Project, for which contributors submit handcrafted blankets along with their family's immigration story; the pieces and stories are briefly exhibited and then donated to refugee organizations. Other selections are authored by individuals whose words Weymar has embroidered for Tiny Pricks, such as memoirist Suleika Jaouad, who recounts her unsuccessful campaign to stop the 2021 execution of an imprisoned man she had become pen pals with. There are a handful of projects--including instructions for creating a "social justice banner" and a recipe for vulva-shaped chocolates from chef Lagusta Yearwood, which are meant to express outrage over the erosion of women's bodily autonomy--but the focus is on activist profiles. Oddly, some have no apparent connection to crafting; for example, Tanya Selvaratnam's account of collecting house plants to cope with emotions stirred up by writing a memoir about growing up around domestic violence feels out of place. Nonetheless, progressive crafters will be galvanized by this celebration of homespun resistance. Agent: Meg Thompson, Thompson Literary Agency. (Sept.)