The Budget
I know I’m one of the few people in the world that finds government budgets exciting. Blame Marilyn Waring.
But hey bet you never thought there’d be a fusion of crafts and government budgets? Did ya? Did ya?
I bet not.
Exploding swallow print
A few years ago I loved to screen print and did it a lot for a while, but for some reason I quit and haven’t gotten around to do it again. Now I’ve started printing a little again, and I’m having so much fun!
The original for this is a sketch for a tattoo I found last summer and fell a little in love with.
Here’s a good tutorial on how to make your own prints. Via TIGER c/o SEWICIDE.
Real Dolls
Check out these groovy dolls being stitched by the clever Ms. Amy.
I am creating a series of dolls that focus on the inherent beauty of all.
The purpose of the series is to subvert the typical concept of “beauty” by using a traditional feminine housewifery type of skill to create modern depictions of of everyone’s beauty.
And Amy is looking for more ‘models’ for her dolls.
I’m looking for all types of women, hetero and homo ladies, womyn, lesbians, bois, butches, transmen, drag queens, queers, and femmes to be a part of my series. I want to celebrate the beauty I see in women everyday.
You just need to send her a full length photo (clothed if you want) and a couple of details. For more info, check out her website
I really like this project. It’s not too often you see issues of body image being challenged in the craft world. There is still a dominance of dolls with completely unnatural body proportions, especially the creepy big eyes! Very nice to see someone challenging the dominant images.
Remember there are no good or bad bodies, just $50 Million advertising campaigns.
Amy also has an etsy store, you can check out here. This is my favourite!
Nerd Core Stitchers of the world unite!
A while back I told you all about the HTML Patchwork Project, the brainchild of Ele Carpenter.
The great news is that now it’s done! Well, it’s opening in an exhibition next weekend so it must be pretty close. So for you lucky people in London, you can get along and check it out.
It’s part of the Open Source Embroidery Exhibition:
This exhibition explores the connections between the collaborative characteristics of needlework, craft and Open Source software. This project has brought together embroiderers, patch-workers, knitters, artists and computer programmers, to share their practice and make new work.
Other works in the exhibition include Susanne Hardy’s Knit-a-Blog, a collective knitting project made by contributors from across the UK and USA, Iain Clarke’s PHP Embroidery, which explores the open source PHP programming language as a form of self-generating weaving, as well as artworks by Paul Grimmer, Tricia Grindrod, Jake Harries & Keith o’Faoláin, John Keenan, Trevor Pitt, Clare Ruddock, James Wallbank, and Lisa Wallbank.
And if you do get to check it out, look for my little patch, located somewhere in the top left of the quilt!
Crafty Collaborations
Craft collaborations are great projects to be involved in ’cause you don’t have to do very much but there’s still a wickedly awesome outcome. Craft Victoria is helping promote a collaboration which doesn’t require any craft skills whatsoever! So those of you who are still holding out on me might want to join in. I’m gonna send some threads in, so I’ll keep you posted.
Loose threads are one of life’s little problems.
Left unattended our buttons fall off,
our seams unravel,
our pants fall down.Loose threads symbolise all that is unfinished in the world – that which has come undone.
I want to do something about it and I need your help
Send me a loose thread, textile is best – it can be extracted or found
I will tie it up, along with others, crafting a collective solution to an old problem.
Feel free to send this request on to your family, a friend, an acquaintance, or friends of friends.
Contribute by sending your loose thread to
PO BOX 741, Newlands Estate LPO, Coburg, Victoria 3058 Australia
By May 29th 2008Include an email contact address if you wish to be kept informed.
Make Tea Not War
Check out this cool action from the Revolutionary Craft Womyn of Addington in solidarity of the ANZAC Ploughshares who gained access and casued serious damage to the Waihopai Spy Base in New Zealand. Waihopai is a key component of the global US spy system known as Echelon.
Here’s the report from Aotearoa Indymedia:
We all had a wonderful time, drinking cups of tea, holding banners, and giving biscuits and short lectures on NZ-US warlinks to friendly tourists. Green MP Nandor Tanczos joined us for a cuppa briefly, who was randomly cycling past.
We got far more mainstream media attention than expected, guess the quirkiness of our action and topical nature of issue got them interested. This reflects how effective the ploughshares action was in bringing this issue up for public debate. Hopefully our attempt to bring US military base at Harewood into mix had some effect too.We signed three cards for Sam, Adrian and Peter to express our heartfelt appreciation for their inspirational non-violent direct action,
Much love,
from one of the revolutionary craft womyn of Addington
And they managed to get some mainstream press coverage
An obsessive cross-stitcher, an expert crocheter and a quilting guru talked politics over cups of tea yesterday morning.
I reckon ten bonus points for getting nana-core into the article!
And of course my absolute maddest respect to Sam, Adi and Peter for their awesome courage in this action. Not only have they brought attention to the blatant hypocrisy of the New Zealand Government for not being a part of the invasion of Iraq, yet actively being a part of the intelligence gathering to fight this senseless war. They also succeeded in directly acting to stop the functionality of the facility. It was only a day and only a million dollars in damage which is a drop in the military industrial complex ocean. But the symbolism of their action was priceless.
Kia kaha crew, rage and solidarity.
xox