Drawing upon field work and interviews with cultural workers in the UK and Australia, this book examines the cultural work experiences of rural, regional and remotely located creative practitioners, and how this sits within local economies and communities.

Craft and the Creative Economy examines the place of craft and making in the contemporary cultural economy, with a distinctive focus on the ways in which this creative sector is growing exponentially as a result of online shopfronts and home-based micro-enterprise, 'mumpreneurialism' and downshifting, and renewed demand for the handmade.

Craft Economies provides a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary craft production, situating practices of amateur and professional making within a wider creative economy. Contributors address a diverse range of practices, sites and forms of making in a wide range of regional and national contexts, from floristry to ceramics and from crochet to coding. The volume considers the role of digital practices of making and the impact of the maker's movement as part of larger trends around customisation, on-demand production, and the possibilities of 3D printing and digital manufacturing.

Craft Communities addresses the social groups 'in real life' and online which have developed around craft production and consumption, exploring the social and cultural impact of contemporary practices of making. Addressing a wide range of crafting practice, from yarnbombs to Shetlands shawls, in a variety of regional and national contexts, the contributors consider how social media has emerged as a key driver of the 'Third Wave' of craft. From Etsy to Instagram, Twitter to Pinterest, these online communities of the handmade are changing the way people buy and sell, make and meet.