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Craft the Vote!Winning the presidency with a Bedazzler and a crochet hook.

By Jessica Vitkus
Posted Monday, Aug. 13, 2007, at 3:55 PM ET

Click to view a slide show.Presidential candidates take note: Knitting is no longer a hobby. It's a lifestyle. In America, do-it-yourself handicrafts are everywhere. Magazines like Bust, Make, Craft, and ReadyMade reach out to a hip, young audience whose hands are rarely idle. Even Hugh Hefner's ladies on the reality romp The Girls Next Door have a scrap-booking room in the Playboy Mansion.

Forget NASCAR dads and security moms—it's the craft vote that can no longer be ignored. The candidates already missed an opportunity to woo craft leaders at the inaugural Craft Congress, which convened in Pittsburgh this March. (Musical version coming to Broadway in 200 years.) But it's not too late for campaigns to embrace the crafting kind. Sewing circles as fund-raisers! Collage and glitter billboards instead of e-mails! I challenge Hillary, Obama, Mitt, and Rudy to whip out their pinking shears and win the hearts of the DIY crowd. I've suggested politically appropriate projects for each party—DemoCrafts and RepubliCrafts—and whipped up some samples.

Click here to see the God-Free Cross Stitch, the Department of Homeland Security Blanket, and other campaign crafts.

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Jessica Vitkus is a self-taught artist and a writer for PRI's Fair Game. For more of her craft ideas see her book, AlternaCrafts. For inquiries about these items, contact the Jen Bekman gallery. Additional crafting from Anna Jane Grossman (pasta portrait) and Andy Coolquitt (recycling bin). Thanks to models Jim Tozzi, Rich Vitkus and Phaedra Lee.
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