I first met one of the owners of Historic Crafts, Eddie, a couple of years ago when I started attending a local knitting group. We didn’t speak much at first, and I really don’t know why, because she turned out to be a very friendly Danish archaeologist who crochets the most amazing gloves. (and knits, and weaves, and sews …and I could go on).
As she knows, I’m a textile historian and big craft geek, so it wasn’t long before Eddie asked me if I’d like to get involved in her new website, Historic Crafts. So late last year I signed up as a blogger and on the launch in January 2010, wrote a little bit about what I do, and more recently some posts about spinning. There are all kinds of articles including using natural dyes, as you can see Historic Crafts blogger, Louise from Haandkraft doing in the image below (image copyright, Haandkraft).
The Historic Crafts website was set up by Eddie Roued-Cunliffe and Helene Agerskov Madsen and is a really great resource for anybody interested in craft history and making in general. It is based on a series of blog posts, how-tos and reviews by a little group of collaborators (you can find them here: bloggers). Some of the posts are even available in Danish!
In June 2010 Eddie and Helene launched the Journal of Historic Crafts as a supplement to the website. It isn’t exactly a more academic tome, but has much more in-depth information. Whereas the blog-posts on the website are slightly more informal and divided into series such as “learning a new craft”, “Easter” or “Spinning”, the Journal has a more overriding theme. You can see one of my posts about the language of flowers there.
Go and take a look! From woodworking to tablet weaving, there really is something for everybody.