Before you barrage me with questions as to what the heck the title of this post is supposed to mean, allow me to enlighten you dear Crafty Afficionados. Craftique Publique shall be defined heretofore as the act of crafting outside the confines of one’s home/studio by (i) creating in a space surrounded by other like-minded and skilled Crafty Professionals and/or (ii) taking this notion one step further by pooling the skills of several like-minded and skilled Crafty Professionals working toward a common purpose or a group project thereby giving birth to what shall heretofore be known as a Craftique Collaboratique!

In English? I encourage all of you to go out into the world with your thread, needles, hooks, yarn, thimbles, scissors and creative conceptions and make some cool stuff around other people who also have thread, needles, hooks, yarn, thimbles, scissors and creative conceptions. Additionally I challenge you to take this public act of crafting further by engaging in a collaborative effort with your so armed crafty consorts.

Don’t have a bunch of crafty friends hanging around your house waiting to show you their latest amigurumi? In pursuit of other individuals livin’ and makin’ the Life Craftique? I gotcha covered.

For the all purpose crafter in you, try attending your local Church of Craft meeting. All sorts of Crafty Afficionados pursuing myriad creative pursuits!

Could you be a Needlework Addict (”NA”) in need of friends who are able to share stories of late night fixes, um err, I mean order histories from your favorite online yarn brothel? Maybe you just long to tap needles or join hooks with other NA’s in stitching solidarity? Try your local SNB (formerly Stitch ‘N’ Bitch) group.

If you are lucky enough to find yourself smack dab in the center of your own personal crafty people party, then how about gathering the bunch together for a collaborative crafty extravaganza (think exquisite corpse)? I was able to persuade a few of my creative cronies to join me in a monthly craft-together, which has since blossomed into a full-fledged collaborative art group that works toward a common art goal. We create projects in round robin fashion, show the work in galleries and the best outcome of all, we have grown closer through our shared creative experience. One of our shared creations below:

Want to see more? Even more detail here. And here’s the book that inspired our little creative collaboration. Another good text about collaborative journals from the same publisher.

Interesting online collaborative project here.

Can’t get out of the house to share your crafty pursuits or still a bit weary of the notion Craftique Publique? Try visiting a few of the online communities available to those of us with a penchant for scissors! The mother of all crafty forums, Craftster, covers pretty much every craft-oriented thing you can think of. Much in the same vein, Supernaturale’s forum, Glitter, is also a fun stop on the world wide crafty web. As is Get Crafty and All Crafts.

Want a more specific online forum to dish the crafty dirt?
Got hook? Go visit Crochetville!
Got a schtick for two sticks? Try the Knitting Guild Association Message Board or KnittyBoard. And let us not forget about the guys with two sticks. Yes, they’ve united and they have a forum too! Check out the Men Who Knit Forum.
Not appealing to your crafty senses? Well, search the craft groups available on Yahoo or Flickr. If you cannot find your homies there then start up your own!

I’d love to keep this list a dynamic one, so if you’d like me to add your Craftique Publique Venue, send me an email or just leave it in the comments section and I will add it right away!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 at 7:45 am and is filed under resources+business. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.