Dave made me a dress! And some thoughts on gender divisions in the crafty world

I'm abandoning chronology in my outfit posts for the moment because I just can't wait to show you this dress that Dave made me! He made it out of an old duvet cover that we've kept for years for making some clothing out of. And now it has finally happened! The whole thing cost £4, for the zip and the thread.

The pattern is the Danielle off burdastyle, adapted to fit my surprisingly pear-shaped body. Apparently I am three sizes bigger in my hips/upper thighs than the rest of me*! Dave ended up cutting the top as a size 40, and the bottom as a 44, and then took it in loads around the waistband and at the back. And now it fits perfectly! Which really just goes to show what a difference it makes to have stuff fitted to your actual body as opposed to off the peg sizes.

dress - Dave-made
shoes - charity shop
necklace - gift from my mum for my high school graduation

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I wore this to work on Friday and lots and lots or people complimented me on it. And were incredulous that it was made by Dave. People were saying thing like 'He sews? But he's a man!'. I'm so used to him being creative and crafty, and sewing for me is just another craft, that I don't even think about it any more, I knit and Dave sews and that's just what we do. But I suppose it is very unusual for guys to sew as a hobby.

This started me thinking about gender divisions in the crafty world. I suppose as a general rule, crafting is quite a female-dominated hobby. When you look at craft blogs and message boards and crafty meets, it's pretty much just women who get involved. It would be interesting to have a gender breakdown of etsy sellers, my guess would be it's about 90% women.

But it's not as if all crafts are so female-dominated. The internet forums for model-making ships and planes, which Dave is also into, are populated almost exclusively by men, and working with wood or heavy metals I would imagine to be quite a man-heavy hobby too. And there are things like leather work or pottery which have a pretty balanced gender mix.

I just wonder why this is, why are some crafts 'female' and some 'male'? Maybe it's to do with a lot of female dominated things like knitting, crochet or sewing being things that would traditionally have been part of the domestic/home making work that women would do? Whereas working with wood or leather or metal would be an occupation/trade that men would do and would get paid money for doing. And modelling, that really is just a hobby, there's no practical application at all, and it's quite a recent development.

Or maybe it's something to do with the things that the crafty activity produces. Knitting, crochet, silversmith/jewellery making and sewing tend to produce clothes and accessories, predominantly for women, or cute pretty toys and trinkets, things are meant to be stuff that women like and that men are supposed to think are silly. People do tend to find it easier to get their head round the fact that Dave sews his bags, than that he makes me dresses and skirts.

What do you think? What do the men in your life think about crafty stuff? Does anyone have a male friend, partner or relative who is into crafting?

The other question is of course, does it matter that some crafts are male dominated and some female? But that's a question for another post!

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* I do think there is something quite strange going on with burda style sizing, I know I have big hips, but not 46-48 size big! I think this is a general thing with burdastyle patterns, that they tend to be quite generous at the top and comparatively small at the bottom? Or am I making this up?