highly recommend 01: craft parties

new series alert!

highly recommend is a new series (heavily) inspired by the New York Times Letter of Recommendation column.¹ It won’t always have to do with fashion or style, but it will always be something I enjoy so much I don’t want to keep it to myself!

The inaugural highly recommend is: hosting a craft party! My most recent (and perhaps most official) craft party was a jewelry-making party earlier this month.

Before my neighbor Emilia moved to London (hi Emilia, I miss you!), we used to have semi-regular painting nights. We’d alternate apartments, sometimes cooking dinner, other times just picking out a fun drink recipe or a treat. When she came back from a trip to Finland, she had me over to sample Finnish candy. During a particularly hot stretch of summer, we made this mocktail at my apartment. Our initial craft night investment wasn’t high: a set of cheap acrylic paints, some canvases (usually on sale for at least buy 1, get 1… sometimes buy 1, get 3 at Michael’s!), and some brushes. It was such a lovely way to spend a night. (Her husband joined one of our last painting nights and showed us both up by painting this incredibly realistic portrait of my dog, which we will have forever! But that wasn’t the point.)

In writing this, I realize that I’ve gathered with friends and strangers countless times with a similar goal in mind. After gasping at the price of a single painted taper candle at The Six Bells in Cobble Hill, I watched some YouTube videos and invited people over to try it for ourselves.(Unfortunately, they are not, in fact, overpriced—none of us were particularly successful!) My friend Kara and I have spent many a day quilting alongside each other, and she’s also hosted a couple of larger sewing meetups. In the early days of the pandemic, I took multiple online classes from the Textile Arts Center, learned how to weave a tapestry over Zoom. I attended my friend Kristin’s barn quilt painting class in January, and I met her (and my friend Camille!) while taking an art class at Pioneer Works in 2015. I also hosted a recurring figure drawing party with my friend Jacqueline back in the early 2010s.

the beautiful taper candles at The Six Bells

I think this combination of craft and community is something I’ve been seeking my whole life, whether that was with friends at a childhood pottery painting birthday party or cutting up stacks of magazines at a sleepover. I’d like to make it more of a regular and intentional practice.

A craft party is relatively easy to put together. You don’t have to make jewelry—you could do collages for a new year vision board, sign painting for a march or a protest, learn something new like macrame plant holders via YouTube (I’ve done all of these before, too!) You can ask friends to bring supplies, or you can provide them and task your friends with bringing the refreshments. You could also take a class with a friend as a starting point before planning your own gathering.²

Whatever you do, the end result ultimately isn’t that important. The point isn’t the finished product, it’s the process.

Thank you to my new paid subscribers—I appreciate your support! If you missed the update, I’ve added a voluntary paid tier to Rabbit Fur Coat. Everything will remain free, but if you’d like to support me via a monthly or yearly subscription, you now have that option!

1. I have always wanted to write a Letter of Rec about the Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme.

2. Michael’s has lots of free online classes, and the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn has a lot of online classes as well.