Pam Berry is a pioneer of the craft and zine scene. She’s co-founder of Chickfactor, an influential musician (Black Tambourine, The Castaway Stones, Glo-Worm and more), a seamstress, button collector, pie maker, and a national treasure in the US and the UK.

What’s your craft handle? Any previous incarnations?
I go by Craft Ho for everything I make now, but several years ago I made cushions and cards under the name Chin Chin.

Tell us about your craft origins.
As a kid I used to collect found bits and bobs to use for future projects and keep them in a box until I thought of something to do with them (hoarder, moi?). The earliest thing I can remember making is a heap of hand-sewn beanbags when I was six, using soybeans as the stuffing – there was a ginormous old dried-up soybean field behind our house in Chesapeake, VA that all the neighbourhood kids used to play in and these hard, dry soybeans struck me as the perfect beanbag innards. Later I learned to sew properly with a machine and pattern in a junior high school class (I made the skateboard pillow with the bare feet on it, it was either that or the light bulb) and I’ve been cursing patterns and cutting corners ever since. I used to make clothes in high school – including my prom dress, a taffeta/white/shoulderless affair that is the anti-Pam dress now, but it felt like an achievement.
My mother is probably the one who got me started making things, she always had projects going on the sewing machine and was great at crochet, she taught me when I was seven or eight, though after the proud moment of finishing the scary orangey brown halter top, I didn’t really go back to crochet. She sent me to Vacation Bible School as a youngun, which was pretty much two full weeks of nada but crafting, and it’s where I learned the all-important life skill of making papier mache lightbulb maracas. When I was 12 she let me go to the summer pottery club at the local high school that had a kiln and a row of kick-wheels. I mostly print cards with a gocco now and sew cushions and totes and do embroidery and make jewellery out of vintage buttons, but I still haven’t settled on the one craft I want to focus on! Maybe I never will.

What inspires you? Any major influences?
Things that make me go weak in the knees are old food packaging and advertising, vintage typefaces, diner china, button cards, letterpress and show posters, 1950s department store logos and coat labels, fabric ranging from leaf-infested barkcloth to Mahler fleurs and Eames small dot, all things Bakelite. Thirties stepped outlines, forties colours, fifties and sixties dress shapes, they all inform what I get up to in the craft room in different ways.
Can you describe your process? Do you start with an idea, a material, a need?
I really like to start with a material, and I stock up on things I fancy as I come across them, in charity shops usually. But these days I’m so busy with the child-wrangling by day and the working by night that I don’t get much time to start a project for the sake of using the fabulous buttons I just scored or whatever. So these days I start with a need – usually I’m late with a birthday gift so I try to figure out a present to make using materials I already have from the stash. Or I’ve signed up for a craft fair and about two nights before think, “Gah, I’m not going to have anything to sell if I don’t get to stepping!” Because I love making things and I’m perpetually flat broke, I’ve enacted the rule of never buying gifts if I can make something instead, but my inability to start anything on time means that I’m always about 10 late handmade gifts behind where I want to be.

Fav materials? How do you feel about buttons?
My amour for buttons may border on unhealthy, but they are such satisfying little chunks of form + function. Bakelite buttons shaped like birds, old resin ones shaped like flowers (so great for making brooches!), big coloured ones for fabulous coats I haven’t made yet, I love them all. When I was moving to London in 1998 and boxed up some of the most important things to post in advance I handed over one big box full of hundreds of buttons and the P.O. clerk looked at the customs tag, shook the box next to her ear and said, “Honey, this box has got a story to tell!” She wasn’t wrong.

What are you currently making?
I’ve just designed and printed 500 copies of the cover of the next Hangover Lounge EP. I’ve done a print run of two new gocco card designs and I’m about to start on a bunch of gingham silhouette stuffed critters with vintage buttons for eyes and nose similar to the larger ones I made my girls for Valentine’s Day. Since I got hold of the awesome Sublime Stitching books and patterns from Jenny Hart I’ve gone embroidery nutty, and lately I’ve been getting the girls to draw pictures onto fabric or hankies or aprons which I’ll then embroider. These end up being gifts mostly. I’ve also been stitching up hankies and stamping the fabric, then selling them as a double pack. They’re slow burners, but I keep making them because I love cloth hankies. I’ve got log cabin pillows using fabric copies of vintage knitting patterns on the go, also little tote bags and bigger sewing totes (belated Secret Santa gifts, streeeetch out that holiday). This month I’m going to confront my nemesis the pattern and make a couple of sixties dresses, an A-line skirt and a spring cape.

Do you see the same types of craft motifs in the UK as in the US? (Here it’s all owls, mustaches, robots, and octopus)
Owls, we’ve got ‘em. Robots less so in the DIY world but very much so in the trendy kiddie stuff world, and last year’s London Popfest tote featured an octopus illustration. They do a lot of putting a bird on it on these shores, too. So I guess a lot of the tropes cross the pond, but I don’t think we have anywhere close to the saturation of DIY craft going on here that you have in the States, so I’m not really sick of any of it. Design saturation in hand-fashioned wares is a problem I’d very much like to contend with!

How do second-hand stores in the UK compare to those in the U.S? What is the UK version of Michael’s, Joann’s, etc.?
Man, I really miss American thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets, and fabric shops that have massive haberdasheries included. Charity shops here are tiny little places compared to the mahoosive thrifts in the US, and because of that it’s really hard to score good supplies/vintage anything. I have actually left a charity shop empty-handed more often than I have with a purchase, it’s a world gone wrong. With the exception of the John Lewis department store which does both, large fabric stores tend to only sell fabric, then you have to go to a separate haberdashery to score all the other things you need to sew with – D rings, bias binding, needles, etc. We did just have a Hobbycraft open not far away from us, it’s the closest thing to a Michael’s we have, two countem two floors of habdash and craft! But it’s pricy.

What craft fairs have you done? Any upcoming shows? Ever think about Crafty Bastards?
I just did the Rockmount Spring Fling at Ava and Lulu’s school, it was fun and it got me to make a bunch of stuff. We have those twice a year but may start doing them more often. On the same day as the Spring Fling my friend Tim did the Carousel fair in Hackney, that one’s a monthly fair that we’ve shared a table at before, so this time he took some of my wares to sell at his and I took some of his to mine (he letterpresses great cards and beer mats as Half-Pint Press). I’m hoping to be at the next Carousel in May with him, but I haven’t been organized enough till now to seek out bigger fairs. I wish I could blink myself over to Crafty Bastards this year!

If you could organize one event and had an unlimited budget, what would it look like?
It would look like the British cousin of Crafty Bastards and Renaissance but held indoors due to our mercurial weather. In my dream world it would take place in Crystal Palace, South London where I live, for with an unlimited budget I might be able to buy the old empty Woolworths building and a couple of shops either side and bust through the walls to make one space safe for massive craft fair action. In between craft fairs the space would be a craft studio with classes in sewing/letterpress/gocco/screenprinting/etc, a shop and a craft book lending library. This is a project my pals Jenn and Tim and I talk about a lot, we just haven’t figured out how to make it happen yet.

You can see and buy Pam’s goods at:
See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pernfors88/sets/72157594546092886/ on flickr
Commission: Drop me a line on craft_ho@yahoo.co.uk
Buy: On etsy from craftho http://www.etsy.com/people/craftho (shop opens April 15th)

Dudes of Craft is the Hello Craft series from Keli Anaya exploring the mysterious world of men who craft.

This week I’d like to get personal.  My grandma has always had her hands working on some kind of craft and I attribute my hand-made skills to her.  Since I can remember, I’ve always seen these lying around my parents house, her house, and every other family member’s house. She means for everyone to use them as kitchen towels, but I just can’t justify wiping down a dirty counter with such beauty.

I recently rediscovered inspiration! Yeah, great news, so I’m picking up some projects that I’ve left alone for a few years including one inspired by my grandma’s embroidered kitchen towels.  This is some abstract embroidery that was definitely going somewhere.  I’ll just have to continue it to see where it takes me.

Sometimes we all have dry spells when it comes to inspiration. It disappears then comes back all of a sudden. To celebrate here are a few links to get you started on an incredible, inspired embroidery journey.

What is embroidery?

Inspiration and free patterns!

Some basic stitches.

The Queen of radical embroidery, Jenny Hart, her blog, and her site where you can order patterns.

More inspiration (when it rains it pours!)

In this week’s episode, Tina Seamonster (that’s me!) learns to embroider! And relax!

Click the little arrow below to listen to the episode, right here on page:

Click here to download the episode (right-click and choose “save as” on PC, or control-click and choose “save as” on Mac)

* Above photo taken by Anya Seamonster, age 4.

About a year ago well known artist Stephen Sollins exhibited his newest body of work in the show “Domestic Scenes.”

This work came out of his previous practice which explored the emotional roles and systems that are manifested within everyday objects.  With “Domestic Scenes” Stephen deconstructed found everyday embroideries to create modernist geometric drawings.  By unthreading the original embroidery and re-using that thread to create his patterns he erases the hand of the original artist and works towards erasing his own.  Yet he allows the original embroidery to dictate his modernist shapes by using the same amount of stitches per color as in the original.

I find the work quite lovely and am in support of reusing and recycling materials as Stephen re- appropriates these linens.  However, many crafters and needle pointers were outraged by his “disrespect” and destroying of the original work.

The original press release states:

By juxtaposing the new, controlled composition and the eerie, sentimental remains of the original textile design, Sollins eulogizes the anonymous craftsperson while elevating commonplace linens to fine art.

In many ways I find this statement both eloquent and concise, however, I then question why, according to this press release, which was written by a man, does it take a male artist destroying the feminine hand and re-creating it into a modernist image to elevate linens to fine art.

Originally seeing the work I was simply compelled by the beauty of the “kitchy”ghost like image of the original pattern in contrast to the bright and geometric minimalism.  This created a complex juxtaposition of an everyday feminine object and practice against an elevated and intellectual male dominated art form.  And I still respond very positively to the visual and conceptual experience I have through the work.

But after reading Stephen and his gallerist’s arguments and defenses against their attackers, I am not sure what to think.  In defending his work Stephen’s words often belittle the act of embroidery and its role in female history- dismissing the importance of the embroideries due to there mass marketed patterns- implying that the individual hand of the maker not be important because the image is not original.

Go here to read an article on the controversy.

I do not have a clear conclusion but I find the arguments and concerns brought up through this controversial body of work quite compelling and feel they deserve much more conversation. What do you think about Stephens controversial threads?

photo: Hella Jongerius

In 2000 I stumbled upon the work of Dutch artist Hella Jongerius in a magazine. At the time I had recently started teaching myself to work with clay and was stuck in a very commercial and static mindset. Her embroidered porcelain dishware definitely gave me a moment of “joyous jealousy”. Jongerius takes a historically functional craft and pushes the limits. She doesn’t stop at merely embroidering her dishes but continues her thread work from the dish directly onto the tablecloth.

photo: Diem Chau

Another amazing artist working with embroidered porcelain is Diem Chau who is originally from Viet Nam. Her work is especially appealing because of its figurative images. Each piece is like a snippet from a storybook.

photo: Claire Coles

Claire Coles is an incredible designer who makes these alarmingly sweet embroidered teacup and saucers. Be sure to check out her website for her amazing embroidered wallpaper too.

photo: Emily Jull

I bumped into this seller on Etsy, Nesting Emily, and fell in love with her “stitch porcelain”. I love the organic shapes of her vases and the simplicity of the embroidery.

I wouldn’t call embroidered ceramics an actual trend yet but I do think that with the explosion of hand embroidery and the resurgence of ceramics as fine art we are in the happy position to be seeing some fantastic innovations that combine these two mediums.

Perhaps this will become a new category of ceramic, Stitchware anyone?