Welcome to Litsy!

I didn‘t want this book to end!! Journey alongside the author, Melanie, as she travels the world meeting with those who make things. A delightful book with gorgeous photos that celebrates the joy and meaning of making things by hand. Melanie interviews a truly diverse range of makers featuring knitters, weavers, dyers, potters, cobblers, basket weavers, welders, etc.
Recommended for anyone interested in making, creativity, craftsmanship or art.

We‘re experiencing another bad winter storm with howling wind and temperatures around -30 degrees 🥶 Since I couldn‘t make it into work today I‘m spending the day catching up on work email and stealing moments to read this fantastic book. It‘s too big to carry to work so I‘ve had to leave it at home. The inspiration and inclusivity in this book is so amazing!

Technically, these were ordered before the new year, so…
#TheGreatBookBuyingBanOf2022 (and yarn) 😁
#bookoutlethaul

There is a certain type of emotional or spiritual hunger we have that isn‘t answered by anything but making physical objects.
—Peter Korn
#knittersofLitsy

Epigraph is by by Annie Dillard ❤️

“Why do we make things by hand? And why do we make them beautiful?” Melanie Falick‘s interviews with more than 30 makers in North America and Europe hold the answer to this question. My initial doubts had to do with the woo-woo subtitle—Discovering the Life You Were Meant to Live—but there‘s no mysticism in the contents. The photos are gorgeous and the whole book is an inspiration.

Humans have probably been spinning for over 20,000 years, and weaving for nearly as long. Threads have been made by machine only since the late 1700s.

Each person has to find their own way of satisfying the basic emotional needs that were laid down in the way of life of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. I think a lot of modern people‘s ennui, or feelings of depression or meaninglessness, comes from the fact that although our physical and material needs are met, we are not satisfying these psychological or emotional needs of our hunter-gatherer nature.
—Ellen Dissanayake

Part of human happiness is being able to make and provide for ourselves. Cooking, repairing a car, or building a house—these are all skills we need for life. When we get to the point where we aren‘t able to make things with our hands and feel no mastery, we feel lost.
—Natalie Chanin

I believe that using my hands to make things and generally being competent with my hands are essential to my happiness. I would even say essential to my emotional wellness.

When we are following someone else‘s pattern, we are mostly stuck in our heads: thinking, counting, reading. When we are figuring out a design for ourselves, we are feeling, asking questions, observing, and making decisions, connecting to the process and the metamorphosis of the work at a deeper level. —Renate Hiller
#knittersofLitsy