Craftfulness: Mend Yourself by Making Things

by Rosemary Davidson, Arzu Tahsin

Integrating mindfulness, neuroscience, positive psychology, and creativity research, Craftfulness offers a thought-provoking and surprising reconsideration of craft, and how making things with our hands can connect us to our deepest selves and improve our well-being and overall happiness.

We should get this out of the Craftfulness is not a crafting book. Rather, it is an investigation of the wisdom generations of men and women know to be making things is a vital means of self-expression, self-realization, and self-help that sparks the mind, touches the soul, and rejuvenates the spirit.

Process, not product, is the soul of craft practice. Whether you knit, crochet, sculpt, weave, quilt, tat, draw, or bind books, working toward small, attainable goals gives us a sense of purpose, accomplishment, and control that is proven to positively impact our mental health and happiness.

In Craftfulness, Rosemary Davidson and Arzu Tahsin offer a brilliantly reasoned argument in favor of craft and its positive impact on our mental well-being. Weaving personal experiences with the latest science on mindfulness, happiness, and creativity, they illuminate how craft practice reintroduces balance into our lives and habits by cultivating creativity, promoting focus, creating a safe environment for failure, and encouraging us to make peace with imperfection.

Like Matthew B. Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft, Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow, Craftfulness helps us to see our world in a new way, offering opportunities to disconnect and pay attention to ourselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Crafts, Audiobook, Psychology, Mental Health, Art

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 15, 2019

Reviews

[Deb Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read previous reviews that lamented that there is nothing new in this book. In some ways that is true, but it also depends on what it is you're looking for. For me, someone who enjoys crafting, from creating things with clay to making jewelry, this book was about permission to enjoy the process as much, if not more than, the final product.

I am a perfectionist and that irrational tendency so often gets in the way of me creating/crafting anything due to my fear of the product being less than stellar. This book helps bring it home to me, once again, that perfection is not the goal and not to let my fears stand in the way of my enjoyment in life -- not just in crafting, but in any area.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Craftfullness by Rosemary Davidson and Arzu Tahsin explains the importance of techniques to keep people happy and confident.
As a crafter I get a lot of joy and a sense of achievement in the things that a make and I forget about my problems for a while as I am busy with my project.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Quercus Books for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had this been a short article on the mental and physical benefits of crafting I think it would have worked well. Unfortunately, it has been padded with quotes from the authors (why do you need to quote yourself when you are writing the book?) and their friends. I would have liked to have seen some (perhaps neurological or physiological) information on why crafting is so beneficial or even an additional chapter on crafting not just for your own benefit, but charities you may craft for (with the presumed added benefit that you know you are helping others). I suppose if you are already a crafter it could foster a sense that you are on the right path.

[Gabrielle Belisle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like this book would be much more useful for people who don't craft. I draw, crochet, book-bind, and sew already. I've worked with ceramics. I don't need to know how these things work. In addition, for a book written by two editors, they repeat themselves so often I could have taken 50 pages out of this book with no issue. The formatting with excessive block quotes was also difficult to read. I was hoping for more information on the benefits of crafting and it's history. There's a tiny little bit there, but this book is not what I expected. If this was a 10 page essay I would give it 5 stars. I feel like this was written by a student who was told they needed it to be x number of words or pages and they had to really stretch.

[Samantha Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so validating! When you work with your hands, create something of your own, you feel proud and accomplished. It’s linked to better mental health, and helps those with PTSD (etc) cope and express themselves. The book is many examples of how crafting is successful mindfulness - which I never linked together before. A short, good read!

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not the audience for this book—its purpose is to convince people to try crafting, and I probably need someone telling me that it’s okay that I don’t know tatting yet. One takeaway for me, though, was the statement that crafting is useful for mindfulness because it helps you observe your thoughts without feeling compelled to engage with them. “Compelled to engage” is a really useful way of putting this, I thought.

[Jeanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF - meh. It spends a lot of time saying the same thing without really saying anything.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the idea, I believe in the idea that crafting (or anything creative) feeds your soul and you're a better person for it.........but for me personally, there was nothing really new in the book aside from the various studies that were mentioned. Great for someone who's new to this idea but just a rehash for me.

[J.L. Slipak · Rating 5 out of 5]

MY THOUGHTS:

I received this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book nails exactly what I've believed for most of my life. First taught as a child that idle hands--the devil commands... to now where I'm constantly feeding my creative nature through writing, dance and art. I believe, by creating using my hands, I have grown as a person and allowed myself to be open to new ideas by sharpening my mind to details and open concepts. I believe that being creative is the next step to our succeeding in life and it's through creativity, that many have made remarkable advances in science, technology and other skills.

Nurturing a young creative heart, ensures that as a child grows, their creative nature is more apt to push them to develop more openly, be more accepting of new ideas and allow them to push boundaries and impossibilities for greater achievements.

This book talks about all of this including how making things rests our minds, or allows us to recap a day in a neutral, more calming way. Almost like therapy, being creative, making things has a stimulation for our minds that other engagements do not.

I've always been creative. When I need to think through a problem, I do my art or when I'm emotionally heightened, either through an upset or anxiety, I find writing very calming as I pour all those frantic emotions into my creative juices. Heart patients will often take up a hobby, and by being creative find a non-medical treatment for high blood pressure and stress.

The author even provide craft ideas for you to indulge in. Never accept thinking that you are creatively challenged. There is no such thing!

This is a fantastic book!

[Simone · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Making reaches into the place where ideas are sparked and where problems are resolved."

So on the one hand, I liked this and it was very validating. As someone who was called "unartistic in school" (please teachers, don't do this) because I didn't draw very well, I've long felt very unartistic, even though when it comes to crafts I feel like I've dabbled in many of them and have long picked up various craft hobbies. Mostly I'll be looking at Etsy or the Internet, and find some kind of project and think to myself, I could make that. And then a lot of times, I do. Many times it feels like the time and money I put into it would have actually gone into just paying someone to do it for me, but the point has always been, at least in part, the joy of doing it myself and figuring it out. That's the kind of ethos this book supports, so like I said, very validating.

But also, there's not a lot of meat on this bone. It probably could have been a really great article. It seems padded, like a paper in grad school that I put off til the last minute, with a ton of long extended block quotes that are not well integrated or unpacked. So do with that information what you will.

[Ginny · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm really bummed about this book because it was not what I was hoping. In fact, between the feel of the paper, the (to me) pale typeface, and just the fonts in general, I was stressed out by this book and I could not even skim it completely.

The jist of what I got: crafting can help you feel relaxed and is beneficial to you. Well....I think anyone who crafts knows this. I don't know what I was fully expecting, but I was just wanting more I guess.

[Allie Vera · Rating 2 out of 5]

This feels like one of those fluff books you pick up at the front of Barnes and Noble right before the register. Perhaps this book resonates more with people who don't do crafts, but as someone not in that category my mind wandered pretty early on.

[Kelly]

The first three-quarters of this book is an excellent reminder of the power of crafting. It doesn't matter what that crafting is. What matters is finding that flow state and relishing the benefits of the process, rather than the product itself. I appreciate Davidson and Tahsin reiterating the power of being a beginner and accepting that nothing is going to be perfect without practice. Likewise, whatever that practice is -- be it knitting, drawing, running, yoga, meditation -- the benefits are well beyond what getting into the flow itself brings. A nice weaving in of research to the book adds even more to it.

The last quarter I skimmed, but I could see it being beneficial for those who want to start a craft but don't know where to begin. There are ideas for weaving and knitting, for drawing, and more. Loads of resources for inspiration and research are in the back.

An interesting book that pairs with a lot of what is in Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive & Creative Self, one of the books that changed my mindset to work and self.

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I admit this book was "preaching to the choir," it was a message I needed to hear. Crafting is good for you. It is calming, anxiety reducing, mood enhancing and most of all enjoyable. I know this, I value my crafting time, I get a lot out of it. When I was a teenager interested in embroidery, my mother warned my brothers not to disturb me, I was doing my "therapy." Now, knitting is my therapy. It is necessary. I couldn't live without crafting.

[Mother Goose Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Through making and mending things, we are making and mending ourselves.”

Creativity can be practiced.

“Everyday creativity is part of being human.”

“ Creativity is the original anti-depressant.”

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This slim book was created by two dedicated hobbyist crafters, whose thesis can be summarized in a single sentence : crafting for fun is good for your mental health. They illustrate this with some very high-level results from scientific studies, but mainly with quotes from a small group of people who seem to be friends and acquaintances. The "it works for me, so it can work for you" approach. There are a small number of starting projects described (weaving, bookbinding, clay, knitting....) and that's about it.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t finish this book.

There was nothing particularly wrong with it. In fact, I found some of the information about mind/body connection re making things to be really interesting and useful. But this book is boring, for lack of better wording, and I’m not entirely sure how it came to be an entire book.

Maybe it’s unfair to review the book because I didn’t read it all, but I didn’t read it all because I felt like I was forcing myself to read it. It is extremely well written, and I think that’s what helped me to stick it out, but when I took away the good writing, it was a lot of fluff with a little info tucked inside. It almost feels like this book could have been an article online. Perhaps if it were framed differently, or I knew more about what I was getting myself into, or there was deeper analysis on the psyche and crafting, it could have been better. I’m not sure, though. Writing an entire book for this is ambitious and admirable. It seems like a hard subject to write a whole book on. It’s like writing an entire book on bowls. Maybe you have to be really, really into understanding every facet to enjoy it.

[Justkeepreading · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love crafting And tips book is full of fabulous tips about mindful crafting. I found this book fascinating and look forward to putting it into practice.

[William Schram · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems that everyone is touting the idea of mindfulness and being more in the moment. Craftfulness by authors Rosemary Davidson and Arzu Tahsin equates crafting with meditation. While this book is not as loathsome as the surfing memoir I read, it also argues that we need to be able to fail at things to keep ourselves in perspective.

This book adds some weird Social Justice narrative to the first few pages and makes comments that don’t pan out to me. For example, “we want meaning and authenticity behind our consumption.” I suppose this is true, but I don’t really care too much about vegetarianism and taking the bus everywhere. These are the low points of the book to me, it felt like the book was proselytizing.

The book contains glowing praise for the process of crafting. It isn’t necessarily the items you make since you can be really bad at it and it won’t matter. Craftfulness is split into three main parts. The first part explores crafting and how it is helpful. The second part talks about motivation and inspiration. The third part explores actual projects that you can do. It talks about Writing, Knitting, Sculpting with Clay, Mending, Darning, and Book Binding.

The book is well done, but I had to get past the negatives of the first few pages to enjoy it. It balances out to make this book a three out of five.

[Fawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fast read - the audio version is 4 hours, including beginner instructions for a few different craft projects. The narrator’s voice is very pleasant. There is a large emphasis on process over product. This is something I apply to my yoga practice but not crochet projects, so I found this useful. The book also inspired me to branch out and try new crafting methods. I liked ruminating on the benefits I get from creating, which is something I haven’t spent a lot of time deliberately thinking about. I like to think the name of the book, Craftfulness, is a combination of crafting and mindfulness.

This book is a great reminder that you don’t have to be a natural born artist or very talented to enjoy creating. My only complaint is the authors took this to heart when writing the book, as it was a bit repetitive and could have easily been much shorter.

I would recommend this to crafters or for anyone who is looking to feel more fulfilled in their daily lives. It has inspired me!!

[Laurie Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the mindfulness related parts of this book very much. The projects at the end weren’t helpful as I was listening on audiobook. 😂 She discussed the benefits of creativity on your well-being and mental health, which I do know. But sometimes need to be reminded.

[Candice]

Maybe it's just because I literally own a yarn shop and have already discovered all of this myself over the years, but I feel like this could have been more of a long essay rather than a full book. It's not that complicated 🤣

[Vikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received some good insight and craft ideas.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful reminder that we humans love to make things, and in so doing, we make ourselves...happy! Lots of talk about flow and the like and some suggestions on good resources online, as well as some crafts that are on their way to obsolescence and ought to be reconsidered. Darning, for example. Odds are few can do it, but many ought to know how to do it, by my observation.

[Udine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing I didn't already know

[Sarah Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

This took forever to read because I kept putting it down to go actually make crafts. I couldn’t deal with all the random quotes from makers sprinkled all over the place, too herky jerky for me to stay engaged. Also didn’t appreciate all the shaming about how we’re always on our phones or watching tv on the internet...um, clearly I’m not on my phone I’m trying to read your book! Stop chastising me! Then at the end it was like, “make a Pinterest board, save photos on Instagram!” I love crafts but I was disappointed in this book.

[Florence Lacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant look at the way making and creating can benefit our mental health. This book is well researched but easy to understand. I think many can be helped from the lessons learnt. With modern society and technology prompting a move away from crafting, the exploration of its meditative nature is timely.
A must read!

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-done self-help type book. Not a lot of real substance or sociological/neurological backing to the ideas presented throughout . . . more geared towards those who already enjoy crafting and perhaps want to open themselves up to new types/depths of said crafting or process feelings about how crafting fits into their overall sense of self.

[Grace Tolman · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a crafter, the premise of this book intrigued me. And I have to say a lot of the things that the authors said resonated really well with me.
First off I have to let you know that this is not a "how-to" book. It's more of a collection of anecdotes from various crafters and makers on the "why" they do what they do. I also appreciated the various scientific research and information that was gathered to show the mental and psychological effects of having a craft or hobby. Like I said, I'm a crafter, so I've known for a long time that there is definitely a positive mental effect that crafting brings to a person. But reading this book made it even more real to me. My hobbies have gotten me through many challenges and hearing of other like-minded individuals feel the same just makes me even more determined to keep my papers, scissors and glue gun on hand for the rest of my life.
Here are just some of my favorite quotes from this book:
"It doesn't really matter at all if you don't create a perfect artwork or object at first, because it's the flexing of your creative muscle that counts: the real 'value' is not necesarily in the outcome, the finished piece, but in pursuing your creative impulse."
"Big ideas tend to appear when we are least expecting or prepared for them - and often when we are not strivng for soltuions, not actively doing, but rather when we allow the mind to wander."
"'Craftfulness' is about embracing creative potential to come up with different ways of solving problems or facing life's challenges, while giving us a stillness of mind that allows these issues to bubble up to the surface in a way that is constructiv and helpful."
"Everyday creativity is part of being human, a natural impulse to work around obstacles, make do and mend where necessary."
"If we're not making, then something is out of kilter."
"Lambert explains that our brains are hardwired to respond positively to physical exertion by rewarding us with deep satisfaction when our labours produce tangible results."
"Andrew Brink of the department of Psychiatry at McMaster University makes the plain and bold assertion that creativity is the 'original anti-depressant'."
"Crafting connects the mind and body in what amounts to a depply therapeutic process. By establishing mindfulness and 'craftfulness' techniques, we allow ourselves to experience intense or challenging emotions without the accompanying self-judgement or the need to censor painful memories."
"When we are absorbed in the process of making, our minds rest and roam. Feelings and ideas that might otherwise be blocked or drowned out by the demands of directed thinking take root and hopefully inspire new ideas, projects and creations."
". . . the difference between failure and succeeding is having a go. And those who try are 100% more likely to succeed than those who never pick up their needles, book a pottery class, or apply for a new job."
"We learn by trial and error. It is a cliche, but mistakes are an opportunity to improve."
". . . part of our approach to making things is accepting the inevitability of, and being comfortable with, imperfection. Perhaps for us that's the only way to embark on any endeavour."
"Neuroscience has shown that our brains seek novelty, that breaking out of some of our routines provides a little of that novely, and inhibits distraction in our search for it."
"Remember, don't let a lack of belief in your creative abilities hold you back - all humans start from the same position of knowing nothing."
"But there is an important step here in that when tools and materials have their own space and are within easy reach, they acquire a welcoming and motivating quality. They encourage your return to the pastime which gave you so much pleasure yesterday."
"When we write about the events in our lives, we catch the delicate fleeting thoughts that we might otherwise dismiss. Writing is a way of making sense of what is going on and by venting our emtotions or expressing frustration or joy it seems to make a positive impact on our well-being. Being able to untangle the knotty areas of a problem whether it's within a relationship or work, helps us to see the issue more clearly, the many different strands that make up a problem, and make it easier to understand."

I highly recommend this book to any crafter or maker out there, or just anyone that wanted to learn more about the positive mental and emotional effects of having a hobby.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although other reviewers have said there is nothing new in this "self-help" book, I disagree to a point. Anyone who crafts, sews, writes, etc. knows there is a benefit to these activities. Many crafters would respond: "Maybe I cannot document the benefits of my hobby with medical research, but it helps me."
The authors did provide references to studies regarding the neuroscience involved in working with one's hands and therapeutic benefits that have motivated medical professionals to recommend crafting to patients suffering from stress, anxiety, depression. The authors are British and are writing from a British perspective. However, as a US reader, the comments they include about the business and stress of daily life certainly apply to American culture. In my opinion, that is the real problem and the source of many of these emotional issues. People simply do not have enough time for self care. That is a societal problem. Make time for yourself. Well, how? This book suggests an hour or two a week to make something.
Much of the narrative involves personal anecdotes based on interviews with various people. The authors included plenty of their own experiences and opinions. Sadly, many revolve around crafting as a treatment component for depressive disorders.
The final section of the book covers several crafts including: knitting, bookbinding (with which I am completely unfamiliar), darning (as a hobby?), clay work, weaving and writing. I'd actually like to give the simple weaving project a try.
Maybe there was nothing new, but it was presented in a new and readable way.