Issue the Seventh: Emotional Baggage
by Renée Rigdon and Zabet Stewart

To everything (turn, turn, turn?) there is a season. Another season, another reason (for making whoopie?). Okay, so we don't need a season for this issue, but we have a confession: Renée is a purse whore. Long gone are the days of our mothers with their summer purse (white) and winter purse (black), we need a purse for every shade of our dark, embittered mood. There's Renée's I'm bitter, but want to look like a goth princess star tote from Bungalow 360. There is her Warhol-inspired skull bag that proclaims I'm bitter, but I also want to know what this dude's head would look like if I were to skin him alive. And of course, her retro tattoo fabric bag that says I'm bitter, but also need to carry around a lot of stuff today, and hey wouldn't it be nice to get another tattoo? I think I'll get another tattoo soon, but what to get? Or maybe I'll go ahead and get that lip piercing next, because that would be fun. Hey, I wonder if I just have some weird desire to be hurt recreationally and what other ways I could go about it? Hmm, what should I make for dinner tonight, I'm leaning towards-- And then we cut her off because she won't. shut. up.

(We know, it's usually Zabet who won't shut up. This is how much Renée likes purses. Scary, eh?)

Purse whores need a constant source of tricks, and tricks we herein present. Oh, and there's some other stuff, too. We hope you enjoy. Keep your eyes open over the next two months, because we will be bringing you two surprise projects, and we have news on the horizon. It's almost exciting. How ever will we stay so morose?

An addendum from Zabet in the far future:
Let us address Tsantsa. Again, it's a technically skilled and well-written pattern, and its inclusion gave The AntiCraft the old curio shop vibe that I was seeking, having grown up on things like Indiana Jones and Friday the 13th: The Series. What I didn't realize when I was younger and didn't want to admit when I was putting this issue together is that those curio shops (and museums) are often filled with ill-gotten artefacts that would be best left with the people that created them. In the 17 years since this pattern's publication, my own facination and exploration of human composting/Natural Organic Reduction has also lead me to learn a lot about more about funeral practices worldwide. Out of respect for those practices, I'm removing Tsantsa from The AntiCraft cannon and offering my sincere apologies for letting my selfishness and desire for a "vibe" lead my decision-making. You can disagree with my decision to remove them from The AntiCraft's cannon, but these patterns (and others) have been weighing on me for a while, and this is how I'm choosing to address them. My thanks to the designer, Beth Khan, for supporting us in our infancy and submitting the pattern to us.
–Zabet, February 2024

P.S. Please remember that the copyright for projects still belongs to the designer. Removing them from The AntiCraft is not the same as releasing them into the public domain.