Blogging Woolf

Do crafting and feminism go together? The answer is yes.

At least they made a great duo on the afternoon of day two of this year’s Virginia Woolf conference. And they are now the topic of a Zoom event set for Wednesday, Nov. 15, at  6-8 p.m. GMT (2-4 p.m. EST).

About the conference craft workshop

Amy E. Elkins, Melissa Johnson, and Catherine Paul presented a craft workshop at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Ecologies at Florida Gulf Coast University. Using typewriters, card catalogues, needle, thread, fabric, paper, and glue, each presenter showed participants how to create a craft that connected to Woolf — or another member of the Bloomsbury group.

About “Crafting Feminism”

Now Elkins is back, along with multi-media artist Kabe Wilson, with a “Crafting Feminism” event she is offering on Zoom, along with Decorating Dissidence, an online platform exploring the role of craft and the decorative from modernism to today.

The event also celebrates the one-year anniversary of Elkins’ Crafting Feminism from Literary Modernism to the Multimedia Present (2022).

Elkins and Wilson will be “in conversation to think through all things modernist archives, methods and materials.” And you can attend for free.

How to register

Sign up for a free ticket.

Read more

For more on crafting feminism related to Woolf — please read “Walking in Mrs. Dalloway’s shoes — literally.” You may also want to check out Crafting With Feminism, a book full of “25 girl-powered projects to smash the patriarchy” and/or the Feminist Activity Book.

Catherine Paul (standing) shows Alice Lowe, Amy Smith, and Lisa Coleman how to use simple embroidery techniques to create a new expression of their feminism, as well as their love of literature, during the craft workshop at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf.

Craft workshop participants at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf used manual typewriters to type new and meaningful verbiage on old cards from library card catalogues.

This was the old card catalogue entry that Woolf scholar Mark Hussey chose at the craft workshop at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf.

Hussey chose to add this wording to the back side of the card above, using a vintage typewriter.

Workshop participants at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf also cut up text, which they threaded through a page with an image of their choice to create interesting juxtapositions.

This was Alice Lowe’s finished project at the craft workshop during day two of the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, held June 8-11 at Florida Gulf Coast University.