Buy Me This!!
From my utmost favourite vintage style Etsy store Betty Oatmeal.
I know someone out there has money to spare…
Finishing Off
I’ve been quite slack on the blogging front recently )read: stupidly busy doing other stuff) but really wanted to share some stuff I’ve seen recently which deserves to be seen!
From the Facebook group, there’s been all sorts of interesting things pop up recently. I LOVE this one by Aruna, what an awesome present.
And this is from another Johanna. What is it with all these awesome cross stitching Johanna’s!?!
This beautiful, beautiful piece is from Heather. Visit her blog to know more about it. But I’m happy just looking at it. The stitching is incredible and the words are brilliant ones to ponder on.
As for me, I’m busy busy preparing for an installation! I’ll have news on that soon. And Christmas present pics coming even sooner. And I’ve been sending Hooplas everywhere! Y’all obviously like your stitches subversive ’cause I’ve had tons of orders. Yay!
Hope you all had a wonderful safe christmas and are planning a kick ass new years!
xox
Hoopla (Finally) In The House!
A wee bit beyond deadline but Hoopla #3: Radical Inspiration is now available for sale. It’s been a bit of a mission and my plan to get it out in October was a bit overshot. But finishing a project before the end of the year is always satisfying!
Contents include:
creative action inspiration
projects
two patterns (cross stitch and menstrual pads)
plus more writing, pictures and fun!
The first three online orders will get FREE shipping!
Hoopla available in all usual stockists (soon). If you have a zine library or store, infoshop or craft store and are interested in stocking Hoopla, please get in touch.
Thanks to all the wonderful contributors this issue: Cate, Nina, Camille, Katie Lee, Rayna, Zoe, Johanna, Angela, Sarah, The Baronness, Estelle, and Cross Stitch Ninja.
Alternative Energy Kits – Now Available!
I know some of you out there have been keen to get your hold of the Alternative Energy Pattern so you can wear your bike love with pride. But you’ve been hanging for the day that it finally got upgraded to a kit.
That day is here!
And not only is this kit supporting the Austin Yellow Bike Project but proceeds are also going to the Loophole Bike Repair Centre in Melbourne. So this kit is an intercontinental(inanantiglobalisationkindaway)hummersmashing machine! Thanks always to Katie Lee for this great design.
Each kit comes with everything you need including needle, thread, cross stitch fabric, pattern, instructions and inspiration.
Get your kit in the radical rags store today.
Supply Side Solutions – My Ass
I bet you been hearing a whole lotta talk from the housing/building/development industry recently about how the reason housing is so expensive is ’cause there’s not enough houses. And – my favourite excuse – that the industry hasn’t got enough land to build on.
The politicians, of course lap this up. Given that the majority of them aren’t actually trained classical economists, and a fair amount of them get some pretty nifty donations from the industry and a decent percentage probably make a reasonable income from property investment. It all makes sense to them.
And land rezoning is about the easiest thing a politician can do. It doesn’t require any legislation and they get a cool photo op with a spade and a pretty yellow sun hat.
UNFORTUNATELY this is all a bunch of bollocks.
Thanks to Tohm Curtis and his recently released report commissioned by Earthsharing Australia, we can now quite conclusively demonstrate that the issue isn’t supply it’s speculation.
Any idiot can tell you that if you have a resource and you want to make it more valuable, you don’t sell it all at once, you drip feed it into the market. That is exactly the issue facing our housing market. Far from the real estate industry’s advertised vacancy rate of 0.7% in inner Melbourne, the actual vacancy rate is 7%. To put that in real terms that’s 2,317 properties empty in central Melbourne during Australia’s worst ever housing crisis.
This speculative vacancy is what’s really driving the housing crisis.
So while there’s over 200 Melbourne University students without a home, there is enough housing vacant in Carlton alone to house every single one of them. And it’s their parents’ generation that is doing it to them.
At the start of last year there were 38,000 existing residentially zoned blocks of land vacant in Melbourne being help by the six big developers. This year Brumby gave a massive handout to the development industry and rezoned another 90,000 blocks of land for residential purposes.
NINETY THOUSAND
So has anyone noticed the price of land drop this year? Didn’t think so.
Of course the majority of that land was already owned by the developers so the rezoning made them overnight bajillionaires. And no, they won’t be building affordable housing, they’re building more suburban mcmansion ghettos which will be drip fed into the market to ensure they can charge the maximum amount for each and every one of those houses.
Our generation has come aboard the space ship of planet earth but all the seats are taken and we are left squeezing in the aisles.
The time has come to get real angry about this. Not angry and irrational, but angry and organised. Anyone keen to help out with creative action on this issue (and there are so many fun, beautiful things we can do!) should get in touch. We’ll be getting together in the new year to plan what to do.
Flock n Flog
Possibly the world’s first ever craft market as a form of direct action protest against land speculation. How could you miss it?
Radical Craft Wins!!
Holy crap!
Yay!
Anna won $3000!!!!
Woohoo!
And those of you who know Anna will know that she’s working on a full length craft documentary so this prize money will probably see the project finished. Yay!
Congrats to all the awesome entrants. Especially the Shocking Stuart crew who filmed a cardboard box inspection across the road from a real house auction. Well deserved second place. They’re even auctioning it on Saturday in Fitzroy somewhere. Sorry I don’t know the details, will try and update this post when I do.
Thanks to Earthsharing Australia for organising a great idea for a film competition. Can’t wait to see the entries for next year!
The revolution is SO happening and it’s a fun one and a beautiful one.
I Want To Live Here – Tonight!
Hey all
A reminder to come check out the I Wanna Live Here housing affordability short film comp finals tonight. Not only is the Craft Cartel running a market but there’s a craft film in the finals!
Yip, the ever awesome Anna Brownfield made s short film about the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle anti-land banking action back in August and it’s one of the finalists to win $3000!
We even got in The Age. I suspect the journalist that interviewed me is a closet radical crafter. I hope to get her along one day. Maybe we have imbedded journalists in radical craft actions?
See you tonight!
Wed Dec 3rd
The Order of Melbourne
Level 2, 401 Swanston St (opp RMIT)
6.30-9pm