Stitching Up Safe, Decorative Sex

IT'S Monday night in a crowded Fitzroy bar and 60 people are bent fastidiously over their needlework. Despite the DJ's kooky tunes, nobody's dancing - they're all too engrossed in needlework. If you reckon threading a needle is tricky, try rustling up a miniature penis in silken yarn, or illustrating hot sex in metallic thread. It's fiddly work.

Tonight is session two of Trashbag Rehab, a monthly craft evening that's not nearly as nasty as it sounds. The theme changes monthly, but this evening it's "embroidery porn". Rude scenarios have been traced onto recycled fabric, and the mostly female crowd is busy bringing them to life in thread. While stitching, they swap needlework tips, chit-chat and coloured yarns.

These crafty DIY sessions are the brainchild of the Melbourne Craft Cartel, headed by Casey Jenkins and Rayna Fahey. Part of the "craftivist" movement - crafters with an activist bent - the duo has declared war on "nice, safe, cutesy" craft.

"Everything we do aims to gently subvert the normal connotations of craft," says Jenkins. "The assumption about embroidery is that it's done by nice, polite women, and the assumption about porn is that it's just for crass men." Tonight aims to challenge that in a (literally) tongue-in-cheek way, "by showing that women also have a sexual appetite, and men are interested in making gentle decorative arts". It's also about having fun, she adds: "Kids get lots of opportunities to play, but adults don't."

The atmosphere is friendly, full of humour rather than sleaze. Jenkins, who spent the week downloading internet porn images and tracing them onto paper, says she was very careful about the pictures she chose: "I made sure everyone involved was participating, and looking happy."

Tonight's "pre-printed porn patterns" range from a topless 1930s damsel striking a modest pose, to some fairly graphic man-on-man action. Artist Poppy Seed, 26, squints critically at her sewn depiction of a "hand-job". "I rushed it a bit," she says, "I might unpick it and redo it in diamantes." Teacher Rahne Witarsito, 35, is sewing an oral-themed "wild-style" tapestry. "I've been engrossed for two hours," she says. "It lasts much longer than actual sex." She's never embroidered before, but she's a natural: "I'm really impressed by the delicacy of the artform."

Last month's inaugural session drew a full house of avid stitchers who created handmade "fling-ups", textile representations of female genitalia. One third of the 60-odd participants were male, the youngest an eight-year-old boy accompanied by his mum. The fling-ups were later tossed over powerlines as a form of street art.

"You see those sneakers hanging from powerlines - that's drug gangs marking out their territory," says Jenkins. "So we made (the fling-ups) to reclaim the streets for women." She's also on a mission to reclaim the c-word: "I find it offensive that it's considered an offensive word, when it signifies something wonderful, warm and delightful - something to be admired."

Future workshops will cover "mancraft", handmade sex toys, and crocheted explosives (the cartel has declared a "jihad on shopping malls"). Jenkins also runs Art Jam, a communal art-making contest using recycled junk, soon to be filmed for TV; Fahey runs the website Radical Cross-stitch, and is currently exhibiting her work in Sweden. The cartel also stages illegal "flock 'n' flog" sessions - spontaneous craft markets in city centre alleyways - and once held a stall in Bourke Street Mall encouraging shoppers to make their own Christmas cards and gifts.

"Craft is about DIY culture," says Jenkins. "By making things yourself, you're not beholden to big corporate structures. It's a way of bucking the system."

At one table, three VCA art students have whipped up some impressive work. Textile artist Jade Venus, 24, loves the communal aspect of these gatherings: "It can be isolating spending all your time in the studio. It's nice to do a project as a group."

Video and performance artist Hannah Raisin, 22, agrees: "Embroidery has that tradition of women sitting around together, having conversations."

Andrea Vasarab, 24, says tonight's workshop is tamer than last month's vagina-making session: "Embroidery's so intricate, so everyone's concentrating hard."

Last month, costume designer Hannah Cuthbertson, 25, left her vagina behind at the bar, but gained an unexpected bonus: a boyfriend. "This guy was sitting outside playing his guitar and singing. He was looking at my (creation) and we just hit it off, and now we're together."

Her new beau, Simon Rashleigh, is hosting another curbside singalong tonight. Things get a little rowdy and the police turn up, but happily the officers leave placated, clutching a hand-crafted gift: a fetching pair of embroidered breasts.

Trashbag Rehab runs from 5.30pm, first Monday of the month at Bebida, 325 Smith Street, Fitzroy, $4 entry.

www.craftcartel.com