Why I Love Handmade

The Toaster Project,  by Thomas Thwaites

I was recently watching the Colbert Report and he had an interesting guest:  designer Thomas Thwaites, author of The Toaster Project.  In his short interview, Thwaites told Colbert about how he set out with the intention of creating the quintessential household appliance from start to finish, starting out by mining the raw materials himself - including the smelting of iron ore for some of the metal components.  His goal was to create a working toaster that looked like the one you could pick up from a shop down the street.  Of course, along the way, Thwaites discovers the near impossibility of creating these components on a small domestic scale, and says in the interview with Colbert that the toaster turned on for about a second once, but never actually toasted bread.  You can read more about this incredibly fascinating project by visiting Thwaites' site devoted to the project: http://www.thetoasterproject.org/

Now this a somewhat roundabout way of introducing why I love handmade items, but during the four minutes in which I watched this interview, I had a rare moment of clarity.  I often wonder why I burn the midnight oil, squeezing in a full day of work during my daughter's nap times and bed times, literally killing myself to make handmade items for customers I will most likely never meet.

There are of course, many great reasons - I work at home, it's fulfilling to have my job be so creative, I get enormous satisfaction from selling things I've made - all of these are high on my priority list.  But what I love about the challenging time in which we are currently living is that something like Thwaites' project is relevant because we have learned to live with a lot less.

This unstable economy we've been navigating for the last few years has opened up a huge opportunity for a handmade revolution.  Which is to say, because we have less money to spend we have a greater appreciation for the items we care to spend our money on.  So we demand more from the goods we want.  Instead of having 10 commercially made scarves from an outsourced sweatshop overseas, we'd rather have one handknit scarf from a stay-at-home Mom trying to make a little extra cash.  It's a simpler life, to be sure, but one that is a little more conscious of the maker who created the accessory around your neck that's going to keep you warm all winter, instead of the typical blind consumer spending that makes up our daily life.  Don't get me wrong - there are huge advantages to the way we buy products these days - I would be a hypocrite to say I only buy handmade. But I like that making handmade goods has changed the way I consume other goods - ones that I really don't have a choice to buy handmade (a toaster), because if we actually paid what this item would truly cost for one person to make - we'd never be able to afford it and it would only turn on for a second.  I like that buying and selling handmade goods has made me appreciate the few items I do have, because I now appreciate the time-consuming and financial cost of the goods in my life, commercial and handmade.