Fannish Fifty: Fancrafts
21 Jan 2023 03:02 pmI keep sitting down with intent to write one of these posts and just feeling uninspired and not writing anything. I’ve just not been feeling very fannish lately. However, I was sitting knitting this afternoon when it occurred to me that knitting was for many years, a fannish activity for me. I’ve made fannish items for myself, as gifts for others, and I’ve knitted non-fannish items for people I wouldn’t have known except through fandom.
I returned to knitting after a break of several years towards the end of uni. (Nearly twenty years ago, good grief.) It was around the same time that I’d returned to reading comics and was working on figuring out who I was rather than all the people I’d been trying to be. Likely because I got an LJ about the same time as I got back into crafting, the two things have long intertwined with each other in my head and my heart. Being a knitter and being a sci-fi fan have become stitched into my sense of identity, reinforcing each other over and again, until I couldn’t unpick them from each other or myself even if I wanted to.
In fact, the first item of full-sized clothing I ever made was a Gryfinndor scarf for a fannish friend one Xmas - *shakes fist at JKR for tarnishing those lovely memories* - and the second was another for my best mate’s 21st birthday. I made a panda modelled after an anime that a boyfriend was obsessed with (Ranma 1/2), who in turn tracked me down a pattern to make my own Marvin from Hitchhikers (featured in my icon) even though I never did make it myself, I knitted a Myfanwy from Torchwood for an LJ friend and doubtless a dozen other things over the years that have slipped my mind. Oh yeah, there was that time I knit another uni friend a pair of fingerless gloves with the Nottingham Forest logo on the back for secret Santa…just because it isn’t my fandom doesn’t mean it isn’t A fandom! And the team identifiers I knit for our Jam Refs when I used to officiate roller derby were definitely a fannish activity.
These days I mostly knit jumpers, hats or cowls, practical things for everyday use, or nice gifts for family members, but it was fannish knitting that pushed me to acquire many of the skills that I use all the time now. And even now, when most of my fannish crossover with crafting is talking about Leverage or some cool new indie sci-fi film with my knitting group, there’s a Wonder Woman jumper pattern in my revelry queue, and a cool solar system cross-stitch pattern book marked for once I’m done with my current WIPs - space was one of my earliest fandoms. In fact if we’re being technical about it, just before the pandemic kicked off, I spent too long carefully repainting an old picture frame so that it would perfectly set off a webcomic print I’d treated myself to not long before. I still look at knitted items of costume on shows and think about how I could recreate them, even if I don’t actually try to do anything about that - I’m no good at designing my own knitting patterns. Cross-stitch yes, knitting no.
I guess what I’m saying is that, while it might not loom as large as it used to, fancrafts are still a fundamental part of my fannish identity and engagement.
I returned to knitting after a break of several years towards the end of uni. (Nearly twenty years ago, good grief.) It was around the same time that I’d returned to reading comics and was working on figuring out who I was rather than all the people I’d been trying to be. Likely because I got an LJ about the same time as I got back into crafting, the two things have long intertwined with each other in my head and my heart. Being a knitter and being a sci-fi fan have become stitched into my sense of identity, reinforcing each other over and again, until I couldn’t unpick them from each other or myself even if I wanted to.
In fact, the first item of full-sized clothing I ever made was a Gryfinndor scarf for a fannish friend one Xmas - *shakes fist at JKR for tarnishing those lovely memories* - and the second was another for my best mate’s 21st birthday. I made a panda modelled after an anime that a boyfriend was obsessed with (Ranma 1/2), who in turn tracked me down a pattern to make my own Marvin from Hitchhikers (featured in my icon) even though I never did make it myself, I knitted a Myfanwy from Torchwood for an LJ friend and doubtless a dozen other things over the years that have slipped my mind. Oh yeah, there was that time I knit another uni friend a pair of fingerless gloves with the Nottingham Forest logo on the back for secret Santa…just because it isn’t my fandom doesn’t mean it isn’t A fandom! And the team identifiers I knit for our Jam Refs when I used to officiate roller derby were definitely a fannish activity.
These days I mostly knit jumpers, hats or cowls, practical things for everyday use, or nice gifts for family members, but it was fannish knitting that pushed me to acquire many of the skills that I use all the time now. And even now, when most of my fannish crossover with crafting is talking about Leverage or some cool new indie sci-fi film with my knitting group, there’s a Wonder Woman jumper pattern in my revelry queue, and a cool solar system cross-stitch pattern book marked for once I’m done with my current WIPs - space was one of my earliest fandoms. In fact if we’re being technical about it, just before the pandemic kicked off, I spent too long carefully repainting an old picture frame so that it would perfectly set off a webcomic print I’d treated myself to not long before. I still look at knitted items of costume on shows and think about how I could recreate them, even if I don’t actually try to do anything about that - I’m no good at designing my own knitting patterns. Cross-stitch yes, knitting no.
I guess what I’m saying is that, while it might not loom as large as it used to, fancrafts are still a fundamental part of my fannish identity and engagement.

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Date: 21 Jan 2023 04:56 pm (UTC)I don't knit myself, but I have a gorgeous Tyrell scraf a crafty friend knitted me, some hand-painted shirts from another friend, a teeny Weasley jumper that's a tree ornament from another, and I treasure all of those things and admire the people who can do stuff like that.
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Date: 22 Jan 2023 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Jan 2023 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Jan 2023 09:29 am (UTC)