Here at HOW HQ, we're interested in the whole handmade, do-it-yourself thing: not just in design, though it's a huge trend here, but also more generally in pop culture. Several of the HOW gang are avid makers-of-stuff (baked goods, costumes, home decor, holiday gifts, whatever).

New York Times writer Rob Walker (whose "Consumed" column we follow regularly, and you should, too) had a lengthy piece in Sunday's magazine about the whole handmade movement. Interesting stuff. You can read it online via the Times website or, if you're not a registered Times user, you can get to it—plus a bunch of additional links and reference material—though Walker's "murketing" blog.

Walker interviews Etsy co-founder Robert Kalin, whose ideas on the handmade movement seem akin to the Slow Food philosophy: understanding where and from whom the stuff you buy (and eat) comes from. (Like, not from some sweatshop in China.) Walker writes:

If the marketplace today has become alienating and disconnected, then buying something handmade, from another individual, rolls back the clock to an era before factory labor and mass production.