Yet Stoller is fanatical about knitting. She's also big on cooking, sewing and other classic homemaking activities -- so much so, in fact, that she recently dedicated the spring issue of her magazine to the "Womanly Arts." Instead of feminist critiques of sexual identity or abortion politics or the codification of the color pink, Bust's spring issue is all about making your own paper, throwing dinner parties and -- for the truly modern gal -- knitting cellphone cozies.

A revival of domestic do-it-yourselfing and artsy crafting is driving a cultural boom in all things knitted, hand-sewn, superglued and welded. Blame it on Martha Stewart and her relentless rehabilitation of the modern homemaker, or on a prefab digital age that's left design-conscious young adults longing for something more tangible; or perhaps, as Stoller suggests, it's a new feminist reclamation of the traditional womanly crafts.

Whatever the motives, knitting clubs are on the rise, Monica Lewinsky's homemade handbags are featured in Elle, the prom dress tweakers known as Imitation of Christ are the toast of the fashion world and the new hip, not hippie, handmade movement is about to get its very own magazine, called ReadyMade.

"It's skyrocketing off the planet," laughs Grace Cooper, proprietor of the San Francisco yarn shop Atelier, which she opened in the hope of catering specifically to 20- and 30-somethings. "We can't keep enough classes on the schedule for the demand."

An obvious source of inspiration for the New Crafties is pride of workmanship. There also is a whiff of ironic retro cool in wearing a rebuilt '50s housedress or baking pink cupcakes from scratch. But for a lot of these budding seamstresses and boy knitters, there is a vaguely political statement to be made in going public with one's granny skills. Knitting, crocheting or tatting is not something that has always looked particularly hip when one, say, whips it out at a bar.

"I used to feel embarrassed telling people about it -- there's a little bit of coming out of the closet aspect about knitting," says Cheryn Flanagan, a 29-year-old Web designer whose personal fashion tastes run toward platform motorcycle boots, dark jeans and tight black tops. "Which is why no one until recently has knit, I think -- it's got this old maid connotation about it. But people our age are past that, and feel like they can do these things without being housewives."

And this, says Stoller, is exactly the point. The very fact that knitting, sewing, crocheting and other skills of the happy homemaker have been considered too girly to be done in public is proof that these crafts need to be reclaimed by the same feminist movement that initially rejected them. Where early feminists denounced the burdens of homemaking as enslaving and menial, third-wavers are celebrating the ultrafeminine in the spirit of independence and, to a certain extent, rebellion.

"We're supposed to be embarrassed by it, so my immediate reaction is to be proud of it," says Stoller, who learned knitting from her Dutch relatives when she was young, and rediscovered its soothing qualities last year when she was on her book tour. "People would see me knitting on the bus, and I might as well have been churning butter, it was so strange to them. All these things women had been doing for centuries were suddenly under the threat of extinction."

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