Extreme refashioning
In other news, the Craft Cartel has been a bit blimmin busy.
Last weekend kicked off the Anti-Gentrification Festy Fest in Fitzroy. We got together with Earthsharing Australia and started talking about the crazy state of our economy and what impact it’s having on creative peoples, and young people. And we thought it was a bit mad that this boom bust system which seems to be all about property speculators totally cashing in everytime a community starts making things a bit more blimmin interesting. It seems to us that the world would be a much radder place if we could all afford to make and grow things and hang out in our communities. looking after each other more. Instead we’re all stuck working stupid hours in boring ass jobs trying to pay the rent which never seems to stop going up. And don’t even think about buying a house ’cause the baby boomers have got all the land locked up and are quite content charging younger generations whatever they can to fund their retirement.
SO
Rather than sit around bitching and moaning about it or throwing our arms up in dispair that we can’t do anything about it we thought let’s get some creative people with creative brains together to try come up with some SOLUTIONS.
The festival has started brilliantly with a giant gory craft session with the old Tote hotel carpet as our chief material. Casey donned a ballgown made out of the stuff by the stupidly talented Kathryn Jamieson and thanks to some hardcore stinky branding, festivalgoers got to take home their own Tote souvenier doormat. Also on hand was a mad fun Lagerphone making workshop.
Best of all the bar was aflush with wonderful conversations about potential models for change and plenty of stories were told about histories of creative resistance against the landed gentry.
The festival continues with an exhibition in the windows of the Workers Club with the Ballgown and other crafty carpety stinky artifacts. And finishes off on the 27th at the Workers Club with the DIE YUPPY, DIE! concert and festy fashion jam.
We’re also putting together a zine of IDEAS and THINGS YOU CAN DO to smash the property monopoly that has our beautiful creative selves captive. If you missed out submitting your idea at the Festival in the weekend, you can submit an idea via our website. And we’ll pop it in.
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Also,
Craft Cartel presents:
Vogue – Bike Fashion Jam
DIY BICYCLE GEAR WORKSHOP TO KEEP THE COPS & THE FASHION POLICE HAPPY
11:00 – 13:00
Saturday 19 June 2010
Coburg Library
Cnr Victoria & Louisa Streets, Coburg
Craft Cartel, alarmed by sights of fluoro lycra clad cyclists and equally aghast at the thought of coming a cropper while partaking in our favourite form of transport, are proud to present a solution: High Viz Vogue, a DIY bike fashion workshop.
The event, which is part of the Moreland City Council Coburg Carnivale, invites members of the public to adapt helmets and other clothing bits they’d like to make roadway and catwalk friendly, or to start from scratch using supplied materials. Local designers Miss Viz will be on hand to provide guidance and there will be displays of innovative bike fashion solutions such as designer Ann Maher’s ‘biker bustle’.
The event will culminate in a fashion parade with prizes supplied by Crumpler and will be followed by a celebratory ride through Moreland to parade the new hip gear led by Sugar Spokes all female bike crew.
“We don’t think riders should have to choose between having a sore body and being an eyesore,” says Cartel co-founder Casey Jenkins, “You can look hot while you’re cycling and still keep yourself safe, we’re going to show you how.”
Free! No experience necessary! All materials supplied. Ace prizes from Crumpler to be won.
A bit of this, a bit of that
Hi folks
I’m not doing terribly well at the blogging these days since I rarely have two hands free. And try as I might, I just can’t stand the tedium of trying to write with one hand. So I have been keeping my updates in Twitter land and my new Tumblr.
Are you on Tumblr? It is FUN! It’s kind of like blogging but more asthetic. It’s almost like mini curating. There seems to be two types of Tumblrs. There’s people Tumblrs, where people just post and reblog all the stuff they like and then there’s theme based Tumblrs which anyone can submit to so long as it fits the theme criteria.
I started a Tumblr account for Radical Cross Stitch and already have a bunch of followers and have found a whole bunch of interesting people to follow. I’m especially enjoying finding all the activisty, vegany, crafty, feministy womyn out there. Tumblr sure seems to be a great way to surround yourself in like minded awesome people.
I’ve also started another couple of accounts (because I got carried away!) and these are theme based ones. Inspired by great accounts like Fuck Yeah, Owls! and Fuck Yeah, Cultural Appropriation!! I started Fuck Yeah, Granny Square.
Firstly I started FYGS because it was such a brilliantly lovely rhyme and I couldn’t believe no one had already done it. Also Granny Squares are FREAKIN AWESOME and absolutely deserve a tribute site (or ten). The FYGS blog has been set up as a community one so anyone can submit so you should totally go and submit your favourite pics.
If you need some extra inspiration, there’s a couple of cool projects online that you can check out. Firstly Little Miss Apocolypse got inspired to do a call out for radical squares to make a collective afghan. This is such a cool idea and I reckon the aim will be to auction off a final piece to fund raise for some cool revolutionary organisation. Maybe RAWA? Dunno, anyone got any ideas? In the meantime, jump aboard and crack out your crochet hook.
And if you need incentive to actually finish one, check out the Meet Me at Mikes Granny Square a Day 2010 challenge (yeah I know it’s June, but it’s never too late to start something fun!).
The irony of all this granny square enthusiasm is that I don’t actually know how to make them myself (sigh). BUT I want to! So hopefully all this excitement will lead to me getting off my bum and DOING it. I am enlisting help and the lovely and awesomely clever at doing granny square, Gemma Jones is coming over for a solstice feast and I’m going to bat my eyelashes until she sits down and shows me. Promise I’ll share my results. You should join in too! If I can, anyone can!
Since Tumblrs are so much fun I got carried away and set up Fuck Yeah, Vintage Craft (I know, I’m hours away from rehab). I’ve always wanted a space to put all the beautiful/hilarious photos in all my vintage craft books. And there’s so many clever people out there photographing vintage craft supplies and finished pieces. So I set up FYVC to celebrate the beauty in vintage craft. This is also a public blog so if you’ve got stuff to submit, please do!
Finally, there’s been a bit of fun and games going on at our Facebook Page. If you don’t like us yet, please do! We’re almost at 1000! The best bit about the Page is seeing the Fan pics that people add of their latest projects. There’s been some brilliantly inspiring stuff. Would love to see yours!
Stay tuned for some Craft Cartel newsy writeup!
xox
Don’t Hate the Media, Be the Media
As readers of Radical Cross Stitch will know I am a big time fan of Melbourne community radio station 3CR. There is nothing like turning on the ol’ wireless to hear people from my own communities talking about news and issues that are relevant to me and the lives of the people around me. And it’s even better that I never hear any loud voices screaming at me to quickly empty my pockets into the hands of giant corporate consumerist empires!
So I didn’t hesitate for a second last year when the fine folk there asked me to contribute to the 2010 Seeds of Dissent Calendar. I still consider that piece to be my greatest stitching achievement so far and I was super happy over the weekend to finally pick it up from the framers after a 12 month hunt for the PERFECT vintage frame.
Well I promised that I’d make the pattern available and at long last it’s now in store. And if you hurry and grab it over the next couple of days it’s half price (sale ends Friday). Proceeds go straight to 3CR! If you don’t already know the 3CR Radiothon is on NOW! So you should pop over to their website and become a subscriber. The theme for radiothon this year is Handmade Radio and subscribers get a copy of CRAM which contains a fab pattern to make your own radio! Including some wee cross stitch embellishment patterns from me.
Need more reasons to love 3CR? Check the spunks in this wee clip
3CR Radiothon TVC 2010 from 3cr on Vimeo.
Brrrr it’s chilly winter sale
Heads up pattern nerds, for a strictly limited time, all Radical Cross Stitch E-Patterns are HALF PRICE! Yip I’m saving desperately for a trip home to see my family to introduce our beautiful babies to everyone. So at this price I’ll need to sell about 400 patterns just to cover the airfares… Reckon you could help? Prices start from just AUD$2!
The cold is settling in for the next few months and the perfect way to pass the cold nights by is a lovely wee craft project!
And of course there’s some completed original pieces in the store too if you’re after the instamatic version of some cross stitch love on your wall!
Also in the pipeworks is some new Radical Cross Stitch Kits! And these are shaping up to be extra special with some hand printed loveliness included. Stay tuned for announcements on these, but in the meantime I’d love to hear what patterns people would like to see immortalised in kit form. I won’t be doing all of them, probably just five. So which is your favourite RCS pattern? Comment below and a random person will win an e-pattern for free!