Knit one, purl one: how handicrafts are making a comeback in Hong Kong
Many of us have stopped using our hands for much other than typing, say handicrafts advocates teaching macramé, crocheting, embroidery, weaving and more to a new generation
Hen nights can be rather raunchy affairs. If you can't imagine the bride-to-be and her girlfriends sitting around crocheting or embroidering, then head to Sheung Wan on any given Saturday and be prepared for a surprise.
A couple of generations may have skipped the home-making gene their grandmothers had, but craft is coming back into vogue because women don't just want to buy handmade; they want to make it themselves.
Natalie Miller, an Australian architect and textile designer who recently held two sell-out weaving workshops at Mirth Home in Wong Chuk Hang, believes the trend - widespread in her home country, but only just taking off in Hong Kong - has caught on here in the past 12 months. She predicts that the next five to 10 years will be "really big for the craft movement" - a throwback to the technological era.
"People want to use their hands again," she says. "Most of us are sitting at a computer all day and not creating any more - but it's in our DNA to make stuff with our hands."
Craft is good for your mood, and coming to workshops, taking home something you've made yourself, gives a sense of fulfilment
Miller had been "dabbling in macramé" for years before she and her architect/builder husband, Darren Miller, embarked on a "tree change", leaving Sydney for a country life in the New South Wales southern highlands. There, she spent a year studying tapestry weaving, which Miller describes as "the oldest form of weaving", dating back to Egypt in 3,000 BC, and still being practised today in the hill tribes of China and Vietnam.