In a world that moves at high-speed modem pace, where goods are Wal-Mart cheap, the Gap supplies the national uniform and lovers woo through text-messaging—the slow, no-tech, labor-intensive act of sitting down to create something from scratch seems as anachronistic as scraping sticks to make fire.

Or maybe not. The crafts and hobbies market is booming, as more and more people log off, unplug and pull up a ball of yarn, a stack of paper or a paint brush to create something beautiful, functional and one-of-a kind. In 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available, people in 60% of U.S. households participated in crafts, according to the Hobby Industry Association. Crafters are also doing more projects and spending more on them, the association found. And it's not just the usual suspects. Teenagers and 20-somethings are embracing crafts that their own baby-boomer moms once rejected as old-fashioned. Book publishers are responding with titles that recast the homey as hot. In fact, judging from the pitches for many of this year's craft books, you'd think that all across the country yarn shops and bead stores were being inundated with movie stars and belly-baring teens. (Speaking of homey, Broadway Books touts a September release, Get Crafty: Hip Home Ec by Jean Railla, as "putting a savvy new spin on the homey arts.")

In truth, the core of the crafts and hobbies market still consists of women in middle age or older. But their growing enthusiasm, as well as the increased interest among younger people, is good news for publishers, who provide them with a constantly flowing stream of instruction and inspiration. "This is a really avid book-buying market," says Perigee publisher John Duff. "They're looking for new ways to do old things, for new outlets for creativity." Duff's fall list boasts a decidedly new take on Christmas preparations, I Saw Mommy Kicking Santa Claus:The Ultimate Holiday Survival Guide by Ann Hodgman (Nov.).

Credit the resurgence of crafts and hobbies to a desire for community—as in those mythologized quilting bees that gave prairie women an excuse to get together—or a rejection of the consumer culture and its homogeneity. "It feeds into the trend of wanting to have unique style," says Karen Murgolo, associate publisher of Bulfinch Press, whose forthcoming titles include Flea Market Makeovers for theOutdoors by B.J. Berti (June). The book shows how to take other people's cast-offs and get them into garden-party condition. "It's for people who don't want to have the same Home Depot furniture as everyone else outside," Murgolo says.

Knitting, one of the humblest and most practical crafts, has now become the trendiest and most popular, say publishers. Next in line are scrapbooking and quilting, followed by a variety of activities including beading, crochet, woodworking and origami. "I think that we have a continuation of what I see as the traditional crafts," says Chris Reggio, associate publisher and director of Reader's Digest adult trade books. "These things have an end result of something that's practical and useful instead of just decorative." For Reader's Digest this year that means titles like 1,000 Great Quilting Designs: For Hand or Machine Stitching by Louise Roberts and Gifts for the Family: Over 120 Projects to Make for Those You Love in Under 30 Minutes.

The Cool Kids Stick to Their Knitting

It's hard to know which way the cause and effect flows. Did knitting become cool because young, hip people were doing it—or did young, hip people start knitting because it became officially cool? Either way, knitting is the reigning queen of the crafts, enjoying a surge of interest that cuts across demographic groups. The percentage of women under the age of 45 who know how to knit and crochet doubled between 1996 and 2002, climbing from 9% to 18%, according to research sponsored by the Craft Yarn Council of America. More than half of the women surveyed agreed knitting and crochet are "cool." Publishers are responding with a flurry of titles that combine tradition and a new attitude. "Knitting is a category that continues to enjoy phenomenal growth, particularly among younger women," agrees Breckling Press president Anne Knudsen, who adds that greater competition and the growing sophistication of knitters demands a corresponding level of quality in the books. "Basic books that skimp on illustration or offer clunky sweaters are no longer enough," she says. Knudsen touts Breckling's After Dark: Uncommon Knits for Nighttime by Jil Eaton (Sept.) as a title that combines a mix of "soft and sensual" projects with high-quality photography. The trendy take on this hobby is exemplified by Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitters Handbook, the unlikely national bestseller from Workman that came out last fall. The success of the book (215,000 copies in print) inspired the publisher to sign author Debbie Stoller to two more books, the first of which, Stitch 'N Bitch Nation, will be out this fall. Stoller, co-founder of the hipper-than-thou Bust magazine, promotes knitting with one of the oldest hooks around—insisting that it's what the in crowd does. She's not the only one. In September Artisan will publish Teen Knitting Club: Chill Out and Knit. As the title suggests, there's a heavy emphasis on both the social aspects of knitting and its therapeutic affect on teens. As publisher Ann Bramson puts it, "It has an emotional component, a community component and I think it does speak to the stress these kids are under."

For knitters of all ages, Trafalgar Square has several titles on its list, including Junior Knits (Oct.) by Debbie Bliss, which presents projects such as striped legwarmers and a hooded parka to be worn by children ages four to 10. Need to go younger? The Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits by Julie Carles and Jordana Jacobs includes "trendy, easy-to-make" projects for babies and toddlers (Clarkson Potter, Aug.). (For more on kids' crafts, see sidebar)

Knitting's close cousin, crocheting, may be on the verge of its own popularity surge, says Gwen Steege, acquisitions editor for Storey Publishing. The publisher's forthcoming book Hooked on Crochet (Sept.) presents the hobby as—you guessed it—hip and trendy. The book's 20 projects include a knit bikini, a cell phone cover and an open pattern ribbon yarn dress. "It's a very swingy dress that you'd have to be young to wear," Steege says.

With all this effort going into reinventing the concept of yarn crafts, it seems fitting that the series originally known for teaching readers computer applications such as XML and Windows XP is now coming out with knitting and crochet titles. In September Wiley will publish Teach Yourself Visually: Knitting and Crocheting. And for the novice, in July, Wiley will offer Crocheting for Dummies.

Beading is also on the upswing, especially for women under 35, according to a Craftrends survey which found that 36% of consumers who visited a craft store last year bought beads, up from 24% in 2001. Interweave Press says its own sales figures bear out the increasing interest in both knitting and beading, with sales of books in the two categories last year rising 32% and 42%, respectively. Interweave hopes to exploit two trends with one book with this month's Knit and Crochet with Beads by Lily Chin.

Memories: Big Business

Okay, so technically scrapbooking is not a word. But just try and tell that to the growing number of enthusiasts who've made it a de facto verb. "Scrapbooking has been growing phenomenally every year and has been for the last decade," says Stephen Wilson, retail marketing director for Leisure Arts, a division of Sunset Books. Because of the growth, he says, publishers need to cater to a variety of levels. "You have some people whose skills have not been refined by years of practice. And you have people who say, 'you know, I'm never going to get done with this if I take two days to do a page,' " he says. With the time-rushed in mind, Leisure Arts this month published Scrapbook Tips and Techniques, which includes "25 ways to trim your scrapbook time."

Another major player in crafts in general and scrapbooking in particular, F&W Publications, has an imprint devoted to the subject, Memory Makers Books, created in connection with Memory Makers magazine. Kerry Arquette, executive editor of Memory Makers Books, says that as the number of people participating increases, so do the challenges for publishers. "We're recognizing the fact that more and more scrapbookers are entering this craft," she says. "So my goal has been to come up with a balance of books for those who are just coming into this craft and those who've been in it for 10 years who are constantly looking for what's new." In December, Memory Makers will publish Mastering Scrapbook Page Design with Michele Gerbrandt, exploiting the celebrity of the author, who is founding editor of the magazine and co-host of PBS's Scrapbook Memories.

Sterling Publishing, the 1,500-title backlist gorilla of the hobbies and crafts category, is also bullish on scrapbooking, which president and CEO Charles Nurnberg sees as the convergence of many different activities. "It has a little bit of photography in it, it has stenciling and collage and every other subject under the sun," he says. This month Sterling is publishing, under its Lark imprint, Digital Scrapbooking: Using Your Computer to Create Exciting Scrapbook Images by Maria Given Nerius. In Nurnberg's words, "That's taking advantage of two crazes at one time."

Warming to Quilting

Quilting may not have undergone quite the same image transformation as knitting, but it too is growing in popularity. A 2003 survey sponsored by Quilts Inc. and Primedia found that 21 million people in the U.S. quilt, up from 14 million in 1997. Advanced quilters, who account for 35% of that group, have been at it for an average of nearly 18 years and spend almost 31 hours a month on it. No wonder that these devotees to the craft are always on the lookout for new ways to interpret their passion. One current trend is an emphasis on embellishments such as beadwork or fancy stitching. C&T Publishing is responding to the trend this year with several related titles including Beading Basics: 30 Embellishing Techniques for Quilters by Mary Stori (June).

Riding the quilting trend, WestWinds Press, an imprint of Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company of Portland, Ore., released its first how-to book on the subject this month. Fresh Air in the Attic: A Welcomefor 7 Classic Quilts, is a departure for the imprint, which focuses on books about the American West. Acquisitions editor Tricia Brown is a quilter who decided it was a good time to branch out into the subject. "It's kind of a case of the editor bringing her passion into the workplace," says Brown, who describes the book as taking a new approach to classic quilting blocks: "They have been around for 100 years and now we're using them in wonderful colors and durable fabrics, so we're kind of reviving them."

For the very hardcore quilting fan—those who enjoy not only taking needle to fabric themselves but want to read about someone else doing it—Voyageur Press is publishing a collection of essays entitled Helen Kelley's Joy of Quilting: More Wit and Wisdom from America's Most Popular Quilting Columnist (Aug). Kelley is known to quilting fans from her column in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. The new title is a follow-up to her last collection, Every Quilt Tells a Story.

Interest in Paper Crafts Soars

Some of the most popular hobbies around require nothing more than a stack of paper, maybe a pair of scissors—and a well-developed sense of whimsy. Stationery Flight by Michael Weinstein (Cypress House, Apr.) offers 30 different versions of paper airplanes. But the book's designs, which range from simple to sophisticated, owe more to classic paper art forms than to the mischievous makeshift craft students launch from the back of the classroom. "I see it as an outgrowth of people's interest in origami," says the book's editor, Joe Shaw. "And I think it works both ways; people who start out folding paper airplanes get involved in origami." Indeed, Tuttle, a leading publisher of books on traditional origami, has introduced a series called Paper Airplanes That Really Fly. Forthcoming titles in the series, written by Andrew Dewar, include Wings of Adventure, with reproductions of famous aircraft from the past, and the more futuristic Space Planes. Both will be published in December. And for readers who want to understand the fundamentals of the more traditional form of the craft, Running Press lays it all out—the techniques, the symbols—in The Encyclopedia of Origami by Nick Robinson (Sept.).

Origami isn't the only Japanese import taking a run at the U.S. craft market. PopBonsai: Fun with Arranging Small Trees and Plants by Lisa Tajimi (Kodansha International, July) aspires to be for its subject what Stitch 'N Bitch is to knitting. "This is bonsai like nobody's ever seen it before," says Kodansha America publicity manager Heather Drucker.

Yep, another traditional craft sashays over to the cool column.

The book has already been buzzed about as the birth of bonsai-cool in Japan—where readers are familiar enough with the classic form to recognize a rebel when they see one. This summer, Kodansha will bring Tajimi to the U.S. for a five-city tour to preach her vision of bonsai as fashionable, fun and a therapeutic respite from the whirlwind life of the urban single girl. And how's this for an angle: Tajimi posits that how you approach bonsai reveals your relationship style. Drucker explains, "If you have a bonsai tree, but don't take a lot of time with it, don't really take care of it, that's how you might be in a relationship, not as nurturing."

By contrast, woodworking apparently isn't one of those crafts on which publishers are trying to bestow an edgy image. It's all about tradition, fine craftsmanship, all those old-fashioned values. What is changing is the fact that it's no longer just a boy's club. "What we're seeing is an emergence of more women getting into the craft, taking a lot of classes," says Jim Childs at Taunton Press, the leading publisher in the category. The press has several titles on the subject scheduled for fall, including Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Using Woodworking Tools. Those who've perfected their woodworking skills might check out the inspiring photography in 400 Wood Boxes: The Fine Art of Containment & Concealment, coming next month from Sterling's Lark imprint.

In a nod to the influx of females, Fox Chapel Publishing has a new title coming in September, Woodworking Projects for Women: 19 Easy-to-Build Projects for the Home and Garden by Linda Hendry. In recognition of the fact that many women are newcomers to the craft, the book opens with a section on getting started. And for beginners of both sexes, Stackpole is publishing Basic Woodworking: All the Skills You Need to Get Started. The book covers the fundamentals of working with wood and tools and—perhaps most important—how to avoid injury.

Everybody Needs a Hobby

On the hobbies side of the crafts and hobbies category, collecting continues to be one of the most enduring activities, with publishers catering to the arcane passions of people who accumulate everything from thimbles to Elvis memorabilia. Terry Kovel, who along with her husband Ralph is the reigning expert on collectibles, says the comeback of knitting as a hobby has corresponded with an interest in collecting yarn craft handiwork and other textiles.

With so many people making scrapbooks, there also is greater demand for flat items such as old ribbons, buttons and scraps of paper once used in Valentines or advertisements. The Kovels, whose books are published by the Random House Information Group, have titles coming out on depression glass and dinnerware (June) and American antiques (Sept.), as well as the 37th edition of the comprehensive Kovels' Antiques andCollectibles Price List (Oct.). Taking a narrower approach, in October, Firefly Books will publish Matchbox Labels: Over 3,500Elegant Examples from All Over the World for collectors of those tiny works of art.

Like crafts, some other hobbies are also getting an image makeover. It's BuncoTime: Cookbook and Party Ideas (Hyperion, Apr.) presents Bunco as an old-fashioned game that is being embraced by (you guessed it again) a hip crowd. "It used to be played by suburban moms who didn't work. Now we're finding professional women, actresses, it just runs the gamut. We're finding all different kinds of groups of women are playing," says Leslie Crouch, the book's author and the founder of the World Bunco Association. Bunco is a dice game that can be played by eight to 20 people at a time. Most often, apparently, those people are women who are enjoying plenty of food, drink and socializing along with the competition.

Maybe, if they're really trendy, they'll even get a sweater knitted by the end of the game.

Make Room for MoreAs in most book categories, there are publishers who grumble that the crafts and hobbies market is too crowded—and others who insist there is room for more, specifically the "more" that they're offering. Several publishers are introducing new lines or imprints this year, each hoping to capitalize on what seemingly everyone agrees is a growing interest in crafts.
Stewart, Tabori & Chang this spring started a line of books on knitting, crochet and other crafts, headed by Melanie Falick, one of the best-known authors in knitting. The line brings together Falick and STC president and publisher Leslie Stoker, who have worked together in various roles since 1989. While she stands to benefit from the surge of interest in knitting, Falick says it does take some getting used to. "For those of us who have been in it for a little while," she says, "it's almost like we're having an identity crisis. Now it's become this extremely public thing, and that's strange."
Creative Homeowner is making its move into the category with a new imprint, Creative Arts & Crafts. The inaugural spring list includes the titles Learn to Knit and Learn to Crochet. "We know that the market has been growing tremendously, and that leaves open an opportunity for publishers," says editorial director Tim Bakke.
This fall, Adams Media Corp. will launch a new subset of its "Everything" brand, Everything Crafts. The books will be aimed at beginners, with the first list containing titles on rubber stamping, greeting cards, wedding decorations and polymer clay.
Rockport Publishers is also broadening its presence in the category by including craft and hobby titles in its new general reference imprint, Quarry Books. The fall 2004 list includes books on making leather handbags, art for scrapbooks and decorating clay pots. Rockport is known for publishing books for professional artists and craftspeople. "We'll continue to publish the more traditional craft books," says Winnie Prentiss, Rockport's publisher. "But with the sharp growth in craft spending over the past three years we see an opportunity to widen our markets by diversifying the category and exploring topics we haven't tackled before." —K.H.

Eulogies Sewn TogetherIn 1999, inspired by Pink Ribbon Quilts, a book by breast cancer survivor Mimi Dietrich, Bookspan's Crafter's Choice Book Club invited members to send in quilt squares in honor of breast cancer victims or survivors. The club planned to use the blocks to make quilts to raise money for disease research.
"We thought we'd get 600 or 700 quilt blocks and we'd send them off to one or two volunteer quilters to put the quilts together, but it became a much bigger project," says the club's editor-in-chief, B.J. Berti. The club received 3,500 blocks, prompting a New Jersey quilting shop, The Quilt Connection, to hold a weekend-long quilting marathon to piece together the squares. Along with the quilts—13 in all—the project spawned a book, Threaded Together: The Pink Ribbon Quilt Project. In February, the club donated a portion of the funds from the book, $10,000, to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
The book, available only through the club, mixes pictures of quilts with the touching written tributes that members sent in with their squares. One note reads: "This block is in honor of the bravest woman I've ever known, my mom, Christine Glynn. The appliquéd circle represents the hole in my heart since her battle ended in 1976."
Says Berti, "quilting traditionally was a way for women to express themselves, and it continues to be. Women do still come together around it." —K.H.

Kids Getting CraftyEveryone in the industry wants to get the next generation of crafters," says Barron's national sales manager Michael Campbell, who maintains that children aren't as committed to electronic entertainment as they may seem—"you give them an alternative to video games and they'll take it." Coming in August from Barron's is Kids Can Quilt: Fun and Easy Projects for YourSmall Quilter by Dorothy Stapleton, one of several books from Barron's Educational Series that is targeting the junior crafter (the series also includes books on sewing and knitting).
Chronicle hopes to interest the younger set in My Paper Memory Quilt: A Family History Pack by Bill Zimmerman (Sept.). Though not quilting in the traditional sense, the book includes paper quilt squares that can be used to create a paper patchwork quilt. With the proliferation of DIY TV shows, it's no wonder that more kid-targeted handicrafts books are appearing on publishers' lists. Titles featuring everything from rubber stamping to knitting to jewelry making are popping up in the children's sections these days.
According to Stewart, Tabori & Chang senior editor Melanie Falick, kids may try a DIY project for many reasons. "In a world of chain stores and mass production, where everything starts to look alike," she says, "children can assert their individuality by making their own clothes, their own decorations for their rooms and their own gifts for friends and family." STC is launching a Kids' Craft series this fall with Kids' Embroidery by Kristin Nicholas; due next year are Kids' Crochet and Kids' Weaving.
Klutz, creator of the book-plus format, has a variety of new titles for those looking for ways to make themselves stand out, create a world of their own and have fun in the process. Recent releases include Simple Embroidery by Marilyn Green and Twirled Paper: Make Almost Anything with Simple Paper Strips by Jacqueline Lee. "A lot of our craft titles continue to sell year after year," says marketing v-p Kathleen Watson "We try and take classic subject matter and give it a new twist." She notes that with schools' cutbacks in art education, "parents are looking to help their kids grow creatively." While the target audience for most Klutz titles is girls ages 8-12, boys are becoming more of a focus. "Boys love to build things," says Watson. "They see their sisters making stuff and they want to do it, too." Recent "boy" releases include Battery Science, The Solar Car Book and The Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes.
Also targeting girls is Pleasant Company, which offers a number of craft titles under the American Girl Library name, an offshoot of AmericanGirl magazine. According to the magazine's editorial director Michelle Watkins, reader feedback helps the company realize what activities interest girls: "We see what's popular and spin that off into books. Crafts have always been at the core of our magazine." Coming in September is Room Crafts, which follows a new trend, Watkins reports—"Kids are mirroring a lot of their parents' patterns. Mom and dad are watching the home makeover shows and the kids want to perform a transformation of their own."
Running Press has recently released three titles for kids wanting a hands-on experience: The Hanukkah Candle Kit contains beeswax, wicks and more; Hieroglyphics, a book-plus kit with 27 rubber stamps, papyrus templates, a reed stylus and modeling clay; and, from the Action Books series, Rubber Stamp It!, which features ink pads, rubber stamps, embossing materials and a blank rubber block for creating your own stamps.
Gibbs Smith continues a series of books by husband-and-wife team Richard and Candice Elton, illustrated by Fran Lee, containing a reusable camera, film and spiral-bound hardcover in which to create a lasting record. New titles include My BirthdayAlbum and My Family Album. Workman is targeting tweens and teens with Best Friends Forever: 99 Crafts to Make and Share (Aug.) by Laura Torres, billed as the first two-of-a-kind craft book, as the projects are designed for two friends to use, wear and share.
Last fall, Storey Kids released Laura Martin's Recycled Crafts Box, which gives readers ideas on how to make crafts out of everyday objects, as well as Making Music by Ann Sayre Wiseman and John Langstaff, which teaches readers how to see musical possibilities in objects around them. In February, Random House published a title from Ela Jaynes and Darren Greenblatt, the creators of Planet Yumthing, a do-it-yourself lifestyle brand, a clothing collection, a Web site (www.planetyumthing.net), and now a book: Planet Yumthing: DIY contains ideas for things to make in the areas of fashion, beauty, food and living space.
And Simon & Schuster hopes to help guide young paper engineers with the publication of David A. Carter and James Diaz's Let's Make It Pop-Up!, which includes all the materials needed (minus the glue) as well as step-by-step instructions to make eight pop-ups. —Joy Bean