Nothing says love like a skull and crossbones tea cozy: Crafting contemporary subversive handcrafts

Subversive crafters portray feminist messaging within stereotypically non-feminist (e.g. domestic) items. They express irreverence, politics and a culture of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) practices embodying irony, sarcasm, parody and humour. Drawing on 44 North American interviews and participant observations, we explore how subversive crafts and crafters exist outside of the traditional gendered domestic context. We discuss how socio-political and sociocultural visual imagery in subversive crafts plays a role in defining contemporary handcraft culture.