Crafty ways - women's comments concerning fulfillment they gain from crafts - Telling Comments

American Demographics, June, 1998

These quotes are from women, 22 years or older, on the fulfillment they derive from crafting:

It's just a thrill. You get so involved in it. It's like therapy. You can have so much thrown at you--family, sickness, whatever--and it's just a release, too. But you love creating something, and sharing it with other people.

I make gifts. People seem to like homemade. They are all excited and appreciative that somebody has taken the time to handmake something.

I can take a piece of wood that's just a flat piece of wood, just part of a tree and turn it into something. Take nothing and turn it into something.

Autonomy. You don't have a boss standing over you. You don't have somebody critiquing what you're doing.

Women make crafts to give other women. It's a mutual admiration society.

You look at that and say, "I made that!" It's like the kid in you.

I do it because I find quietness within me, peace.

I just like to see the beauty of it develop. It gives me a lift, when I create something that I didn't think was in here. When you get inspired, you get really excited when you see something that you put together.

--Compiled from comments made during focus groups conducted by Langer Associates, Inc., of New York City for Crafts magazine in November 1997