In four years the CLF has helped bring crochet to a place where we sit more accepted in the fiber world. It bothers me that we had to do anything at all. After all, whether we create with yarn and hook or paper and glue, we are choosing to do the most human of activities; express our creativity with our hands.
I said on Facebook today that the C in CLF could as easily be the word craft as it is crochet. I chose crochet because that is what I do and I understand the conditions which crochet lovers are faced in the marketplace and as makers. I didn’t choose the name because of a superiority complex regarding my craft.
I love crochet, it’s part of my family story. I have a history with crochet and I know many of you do as well. It is very personal to us, yes we do indeed get offended when people make nasty comments about our craft.
What about the other crafts? Some are completely ignored and others get the cold shoulder as well. Just last night on Twitter I heard a sad tale of a Macrame artist who was treated terribly at a fiber event. Really? How infantile.
If you are a crafting professional, supplier, store owner, you have NO BUSINESS treating anyone who could or does buy your products with anything less than GRATITUDE. That’s right, customers owe you nothing except the payment they make to buy your goods and services, but you my friends owe them much. After all those customers provide YOU with your livelihood!
Arts and Craft snobbery is the single most asinine behavior I can imagine. In a world that faces many serious issues, to cause further discord based off of the choice of creative media is puerile, ignorant and displays tiny minds at work. If you want to feel self important then go out and do something worth while and useful with your crafting, don’t just put other people down because you have this desire to be the top dog.
Members enjoy the video clip below, to remind you why craft snobbery is foolish!
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Well said, fellow hooker!
Thank you
Prejudice is intolerable on any level, creating it in crafting is ridiculous. 
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it 
Dr. Suess really had a way of getting to the heart of the matter, didn’t he. Love it. Sadly, we humans are a clannish bunch. Ones craft of choice is a particularly stupid thing to be clannish about. As stupid as whether your belly has a star! Good rant.
I was taught by my mother how to crochet, I picked up knitting later in life, I naalbind, spin and stitch. I have run into stupid bigotry when mentioning crochet in mixed (media company), and it is just STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Grow up it is ALL ART! Nuff Said!
Hook On! Live Long!
Absolutely agree Laurie! It’s inane how many people judge someone by their craft of choice. And let’s not forget that crochet, for many unfortunate people is all about granny squares and old fashioned garnets and doilies (PS – there is nothing wrong with doilies). This is a great moment to highlight that it’s not your craft of choice that defines you and how important/respectable/admirable your work is; it’s how you use that craft and what you make with that skill. We should all learn to look at what every crafter makes and appreciate the skill and time it takes to make the work. All crafts are valid and can be innovative. It’s just a matter of taste if you like it, and that’s not the point.
Oooh, puerile! Great vocab Laurie! Good ol’ Latin I.
Hehehe, it’s one of my favorite words
Besides antidisestablishmentarianism, that is my favorite of all time. 
I see in people who are not liking either my crafts/arts or what I create that they are in fact doing me a great favour ! I interpret their dislike, or hate, as their attempt to express what they feel towards my work. If they don’t like something then they must somehow have thought about it even if it is for a fraction of a second. This means that I’m on to something and I feel compelled to further explore avenues they don’t feel comfortable questioning themselves.
We can be as strong as the comments or critiques we receive, it’s just a matter of perception and detachment, because there is a big difference between what we are as individuals, and what we create. I used to think that there is a portion of myself in my creations where in fact it’s a portion of my message in my creations.
As per the choice of craft, it depends on the following, among others: what we can do, what we like, what is available to us (how easy for us to get the raw materials and how much we can spend on getting them), how we want to convey our message, and what we want to say. Some will like it, most won’t.
But Dr Seuss says it best ““Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
Wishing you all a very happy and creative life
Thank you for this Michel!
Indeed it is important to remember that our crafts are an expression of our message, they are not part of us and no part of us magically is infused into them.
This post was geared not to our things that we make, but the foolishness of judging others based on their media of expression.
I don’t ever want to see crocheters looking down upon others in the way we have been seen. I think it’s an important message to send out. We can be proud of what we do and still celebrate the creative urges of others.
Indeed Laurie, we need to be proud of ourselves. And pride comes from the inside and should never be affected by what people would say. I know it’s tough, took me more than 30 years to realize that what people say about my creations is what they say, it does not change what I have created nor it changes me.
Those in the fashion industry who ridiculed crochet a few years ago, or snobbed
now are all for it. So it just proves again that “saying” something has as much value as it has.
We also suffer from a world where everything is “commoditized” and disposable. The value of everything and especially work done by hand has gone down the drain. Now people are rediscovering the value of well crafted items and the hard work we put in it.
In the end, we win
So very true. For many creative and intuitive people often our sensitivity to judgment comes from our own self imposed judgment of almost unattainable perfection. But, it’s still good to play nice in the sandbox ;D