Crafting is another way of looking at making, with projects that have their own design sense, grounded in materials and often traditional processes and techniques. Craft re-imagines and personalizes many of the everyday objects in our lives. Make:V97 looks at the infusion of tech into craft with a lot of projects that look cool and are fun to make. The new issue should be on its way to subscribers early next Month.

Goli Mohammedi writes in this issue: “So many amazing crafters exhibited at that first Maker Faire that they warranted their own magazine, and the first volume of Craft: was released in October 2006. Etsy was launched that same year in June, and Instructables in August. (Instagram was still 4 years away.)” She adds that the magazine “was a labor of love and a joy to work on.” Goli reached out to others who worked on Craft: and shared their reflections.

The project on the cover for Make: V97 is the “Bargello Blaze Bag” by Charlyn Gonda. The project combines the traditional needlepoint technique of bargello with modern 3D printing and lighting technology. It exemplifies the kind of project we featured in Craft: magazine — integrating technology into traditional craft.

Kenny Sing in an artist and ceramicist. In “The Future of Clay",” he writes about how he now uses digital fabrication tools to create pots with unique designs

Jennifer Blakeslee writes about her experience forging a knife in a workshop taught by Isaiah Schroeder. His knives are “unusual, patterned and undeniably beautiful.”

At the local community college, Moss Darci-Maher studied etching, “a form of intaglio printmaking using acid to corrode grooves into copper.” She became increasingly fascinated with this 2,000-year-old art form so she built her own etching press and her article shares how she did it.

Maker Faire Miami is this weekend at the Miami-Dade Expo Center but yesterday it opened with an Education Day with over 700 students. Gillian Mutti of Make: was there and reported on Makezine that the “the day was a masterclass in what happens when young minds meet makers who love to share what they do.”

On Friday, I participated in a meeting of the NorCal Makers Group at Community Shop Class in Sacramento. It was organized by Stephanie Santoso of MakerUSA, John Pellman of CCCA Works and Zack Dowell of Folsom Lake College.

I did a podcast episode in 2024 featuring Chad Orcutt of Community Shop Class. He’s got a big heart, an inspiring message and an impressive makerspace that has the look and feel of a garage for hot rods. Chad talked about building learning programs with emtion at the core. “I don’t know anything about building learning programs,” he said, but I know how kids learn. I may not be qualified but I can do it.” Chad does amazing work serving the local community and providing non-traditional hands-on learning oppportunities.

I met some wonderful people who are managing makerspaces in schools, colleges, libraries and museums. More on them later.

Faith Caplan, an engineering teacher at Cordova High School, brought members of their InvenTeam, which is a Lemelson MIT project. Caplan emphasized that she wanted the students to identify a problem and begin working on a solution. “It was important for them to have agency,” she said.

The students, all girls, decided on solving the problem of clogged storm drains. They noticed a particular storm drain inlet that was filled with trash and it near a 7-11 store. “So much of what you could see in the trash with Big Gulp cups,” said one of the team members. While they are still working on the project, the team has visited MIT for an event and they have really enjoyed working together on this project.

Hackster reports that Supplyframe has sold Tindie, an independent marketplace for makers, and then the site was put into maintenance mode. The site was down for two weeks but it is back up today.

Seems like a pretty big “oops” that surprised sellers. Jeremy Cook, who has an electronics store on Tindie named JC Devices, wrote on April 17th that he noticed the site was down.

The Hackaday story said that the new owners of Tindie have not identified themselves. Any bets on who it is?

Make Things is a weekly newsletter for the Maker community from Make:. This newsletter lives on the web at makethings.make.co

You can reach me at [email protected].