Don't corrupt your dolls - A note about thinking about the image of crafting and the treatment of women

(tee hee from Quick Meme)

Those who know me know I am no prude, not by far, but some things that I've seen online recently have even made me wonder about where people's minds are heading. And the funny thing is that the things that have really been making me wonder are on their head, very innocent looking. 

I am a huge fan of amigurumi (crocheted toys of animals and dolls). I follow a lot of different fandoms including Lalaloopsy, Lalylala, Rabbiz, NerdyKnitter, etc. and so many of them are so much fun. Who doesn't want a stuffed pony dressed like Doctor Who, for example? 

As a part of this, fans create their dolls and animals and post them online for others to admire, rate and give compliments. Which is awesome that they have a place to go and do that, be it on Facebook, independent sites, Deviantart, Etsy, etc. What's giving me pause though, is the recent trend that seems to be cropped up online, in which these innocent little dolls, with their wide eyes, impossible size, and inability to stand on their own, are used to mimic pornography. 

A recent post, for example, gave the image of a little doll in a wide circle skirt with wide eyes, a tiny waist, and teeny legs that stood only by the virtue of the weight of the skirt. Then a series of photos was posted in which the doll strips down to her underwear while posing provocatively. Another post had a series of cat dolls with wide eyes and big eyelashes "mating" to make kitten dolls. Other posts feature the dolls whipping each other with yarn "whips" with hearts and stars, male and female dolls "mating", still others are in what would be considered a strip club position when real humans hold that position in place.

I can't help but think of the similarities to video games with many of these scenarios. My first thought was that these were male fans doing these poses, but that was wrong of me. Its just as many female fans doing the "naughty doll" thing. 

What does it say about us as women that we want to make our dolls handicapped versions of reality and then place them in abusive or pornographic situations? Are we so deeply ingrained as a society in the mistreatment of women that we do it to ourselves? 

I think what bothers me most about this is that they are dolls. And toys. Kids can see these things very easily - if you image search for dolls or particular brands, 25-30% of the results are images that I wouldn't want any kid to see. Heck, I don't want to see a doll getting violated and I'm in my 30s. Dolls are mini-humans, and how kids treat them will become how they will treat real humans as adults. 

We don't want to teach anyone to do this. I say we stop allowing this now.

Pinterest: Image and the Crafting Pattern

This gorgeous flower is from the cotinis stream on Flickr.
The original, along with his other gorgeous photos, can be found here. 

I've been doing a lot of reading lately of the business journals and it has me thinking about the power of the image. There's a lot of talk on the Internet now about Pinterest, and I've been following the phenomenon with some interest, as its changing the design community. Patterns that used to be sold in a book with no picture are now full of splashy photography in order to make the sale.

Take easy knit baby hats, for example. Most are the same instructions - cast on a certain number of stitches, knit for 5-7 inches, then start a set system of decreases until the hat is bound off, or from the other direction, cast on just a couple stitches, increase until a set size, and then knit until long enough. Most designers now are adding a few more flourishes, such as lace, animal ears, colorwork, etc.

Pretty easy instructions, right? It can be on a handout, a notepad, anything. Back in the day, we were happy to get some photos at all, and it was hoped that they showed key details. I did a search on Ravelry for paid knit baby hats with most projects and least projects.

Least

Most

Look at the difference between the two. Both have action and flat shots, and both look like they would make serviceable hat patterns that would be well loved by their recipients. Yet the teddy bear hat has 190 projects, and the other has 1. The difference: look at the quality. The teddy bear hat has professional looking prhotography, lots of of photos with variety, including detail shots. The other hat has worse lighting, less detail in the shots, and overall, looks like a amateur photo. The ideal search item via image, rather than via pattern instruction.

Would this have made a difference ten years ago? Not really. The designer of the teddy bear hat might have garnered some attention via her blog, but the other hat could have easily been posted on craftster or other craft forums and had tons of projects.

Pinterest really brings this issue home. Check out the results of a search there. You'd think there were only a few producers because of the amount of repins of certain images. Yet in reality, there are thousands of patterns out there for a baby hat. But the ones with the best images rise to the top.

We are at the forefront of the digital catalog taking photography to the forefront of crafting businesses. Are you getting ready for it?

Anthropologie: Green, Crafty, Cool!

Just awesome. For those of you who don't realize quite how to do them, Happiness Is... has some great closeups and the official tutorial.

The City Cradle gives a more detailed tutorial and shows how they redid the craft. I so cannot wait to try this myself! I must have fifteen photos or so saved of the display.

Anthropologie is great - its nice to see that someone still values the true selling power of a good quality window display. So often I see clothes jumbled into something "arty" with no theme at the local stores, and it makes me sad, having seen the wonderful displays of Dayton's in Minneapolis, Barney's in New York, and countless windows in Italy (especially Venice). Stores so often forget that it is the power of the visual that catches their attention, and brings them in a door...I know I'll be heading to the Chicago store to see what their windows look like!

Snakes, Tacos, and Crafting

I haven't posted here for about a month, so I wanted to assure everyone that I am

a)still alive
b)still crafting
c)still interested in blogging.

:-D

However, my time isn't always as well planned as it should be and I forget to make the posts that I had wanted to make. However, I am hoping that will change with the advent of planned blogging.

Its a concept I read on another person's blog (yes, I do read many blogs, usually via email since I can always download my email and read it offline). Instead of blogging "when you think about it", you set up a series of blogs in one day, and delay their posting until they meet set intervals. Interesting concept...

Then when you want to blog, you can also post "whenever", but once a month you plan the programming for the next month. That's where the word "genius" comes to mind!

So I'll try that in February. We'll see how it goes :-)

But back to the topic at hand....



Doesn't that look like what a glamorous Sea Snake should look like? Its a wonderful pattern by Nancy Nagle of Nangelli.com called "Delicious Diamond".

If you're interested, its a free Ravelry download, too. I found it to be quite fun to work and really worked to the advantage of the short fur style yarn.



Doesn't that look good? Sarahpark on Ravelry wrote up this nifty recipe which included those AND a pattern for a cast iron skillet pot handle.



Isn't that cute? It kind of reminds me of a fish, but it also makes Shawn happy and keeps his hand cool while cooking. A very fun test crochet project - I highly encourage you to to try it when she releases the pattern!

I've been working on some other things, but I'll save some stuff for this weekend to post.