Craft Corner Deathmatch

Has anybody seen this show? I need a report!! Excerpted from Savage crafters, start your glue guns! by Randy Kennedy for the New York Times (Mar. 8, 2005)

The world of crafts tends to bring to mind genteel images, like quilting bees, decoupage lampshades and the pre-prison aura of Martha Stewart.

... Wednesday night the Style Network introduces "Craft Corner Deathmatch," an unconventional game show in which two amateur crafters go head to head in timed trials, trying to make the best pillow out of old couch fabric or a brooch using only candy.

... three times during tapings of the show ... competitors had given themselves nasty, if minor, cuts. "Which is fantastic," Taberski said, his eyes lighting up. "The fact that someone drew blood on a crafting show? It's exactly what the show should be."

...A team of craft experts helped them come up with dozens of competitive projects, like making handbags out of artificial turf, bowls out of rolls of tickets, watchbands using only hot glue and decorative doodads and Barbie clothes using fabric scraps. ("Or as we call them, 'Schmarbie' clothes, because you can't use the brand name on television," Taberski explained.)

At the beginning, the show's creators worried that they might have trouble finding talented amateur crafters - not simply out-of-work actors pretending to love macrame - who would want to show off their skills in such a ludicrous setting. "It's not a competition type thing," Taberski said of craft-making.

But they found that crafters were much more rabidly competitive than they had assumed ... more than 300 applicants showed up for the show's 26 spots.

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