The new mothers of purl; Cast off those memories of itchy Aran

DEBBIE Stoller, editor of Bust - the American magazine for third- wave feminists, riot grrrls, Gloria Steinem wannabes and the "new girl order" - is not necessarily the type of person you would imagine as a stereotypical homemaker. Thirty-eight years old and defiantly independent, she's partial to leopard skin and lace and T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like "Toys in Babeland". She's into drumming, works at a dot.com incubator and loves rock queen Joan Jett.

Yet Stoller is fanatical about knitting. She's also big on cooking, sewing and other classic homemaking activities - so much so, in fact, that she recently dedicated the spring issue of her magazine to the "womanly arts". Instead of feminist critiques of sexual identity or abortion politics, Bust's spring issue is all about making your own paper, throwing dinner parties and - for the truly modern gal - knitting mobile phone cozies.

A revival of domestic do-it-yourselfing and artsy crafting is driving a cultural boom in all things knitted, hand-sewn, superglued and welded. Blame it on the US's Martha Stewart and her UK counterpart Nigella Lawson for their relentless rehabilitation of the modern homemaker, or on a prefab digital age that's left design- conscious young adults longing for something more tangible; or perhaps, as Stoller suggests, it's a new feminist reclamation of the traditional womanly crafts.

Whatever the motives, knitting clubs in America are on the rise, Monica Lewinsky's homemade handbags have been featured in Elle, the prom dress tweakers known as Imitation Of Christ are the toast of the fashion world and the new hip, not hippie handmade movement is about to get its very own magazine called ReadyMade.

An obvious source of inspiration for the new crafties is pride of workmanship. And there is a whiff of ironic retro cool in wearing a rebuilt 1950s housedress or baking pink cupcakes from scratch. But there's also a vaguely political statement to be made in going public with one's granny skills. Knitting, crocheting and tatting is not something that has always looked particularly hip when one, say, whips it out at a bar.

"There's a little bit of coming out of the closet aspect about knitting," says Cheryl Flanagan, a 29-year-old web designer whose personal fashion tastes run toward platform motorcycle boots, dark jeans and tight black tops. "It's got this old maid connotation about it. But people our age are past that and feel like they can do these things without being housewives."

And this, says Stoller, is exactly the point. The very fact that knitting, sewing, crocheting and other skills of the happy homemaker have been considered too girly to be done in public is proof that these crafts need to be reclaimed by the same feminist movement that initially rejected them. "We're supposed to be embarrassed by it, so my immediate reaction is to be proud of it," she says. Where early feminists denounced the burdens of homemaking as enslaving and menial, third-wavers are celebrating the ultra-feminine in the spirit of independence and, to a certain extent, rebellion.

It isn't just women who are knitting, purling and making curtains. Young men have taken up the homely arts, in particular joining and forming knitting circles.

More than just handmade scarves, the made-by-me movement is about almost everything that can be produced at home. The popular website Getcrafty.com offers tutorials on how to turn an old record into a flower pot, paint racing stripes on your car or cook up a fruit acid skin peel - interjected with girl power rants about financial independence and reflections on domesticity and "mom's influence".

ReadyMade, which launches in July, offers "instructions for everyday life" to youthful do-it-yourselfers. It's targeting the same kind of design-savvy crowd who drool over Wallpaper magazine, an eclectic audience that wants to make something their friends will admire for its cool cleverness, like a wallet assembled from a discarded jiffy bag. Since consumerism makes it difficult to be unique when everyone is buying the same Habitat place mats, the new crafties have found a way to express individuality, showcase personal design sensibilities and make a small statement against conspicuous consumption by taking production into their own hands.

Perhaps ironically, the new craft crowd looks to Martha Stewart as a patron saint. Despite her harpy reputation and upper-middle class projects, Stewart has elevated the happy homemaker to hipness. This is a woman, after all, who has become one of the most powerful female businesswomen in the world while baking cakes that look like vegetable gardens and making drink coasters out of pansies.

"Not only is Martha Stewart driving this reinvigoration of the domestic arts, but she's repositioning it," explains Stoller. "In the 1960s and 1970s this was all about making a good life for your husband and your kids. But Martha Stewart is doing it for herself; she doesn't even have a husband and kids at home - she does it for the fulfilment and the joy of having a nice home."

Stewart advocates simplicity as an aesthetic more than a way of life. She pursues perfection more than peace; her projects display the gloss of graceful ease while disguising impossibly difficult, and frequently expensive, processes. And the final image - the look - is everything.

But the new DIY movement is also about simplicity in opposition to fussiness.The average youthful DIYer is more concerned with the best way to mask the scent of cat urine emanating from the downstairs flat than building a perfect rake for spring gardening. It's less about bourgeois perfection and more about making a unique, individual statement. Still a little selfish, but not, perhaps, quite so traditionally pretentious.

And for the new do-it-yourselfers, many of whom spend 10 hours per day in front of a computer screen shifting pixels, the act of physical creation is a novelty to be explored.

"There's a real yearning for slowing down the pace of our culture. I think in this age of mechanical reproduction people are intrigued by the aura of the original," says ReadyMade editor Shoshana Berger.

The women (and men) who are now in their 20s and 30s are among the first generations that weren't uniformly forced to segregate by sex into home economics and woodwork classes at school. They were inducted into a world where everything that could be made could be more easily purchased, where status was attached to label and brand, not to the level of skill involved in making the object. Unlike previous handicraft revivalism movements - when things were made because they couldn't be bought; or, as in the 1960s and 1970s, things were made to demonstrate one's connection to the earth - today's handcrafting is a self-conscious exploration of something younger generations haven't really known first hand. It may be a bit political, but it's also intensely personal.

And it is playful, an activity that's not actively determined by the results. It's not about creating a scarf, it's about knitting with your friends: after all, you can probably buy the scarf cheaper in a department store.

www.bust.com

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