RADICALCROSSSTITCH

SITE

As previously blogged, Radical Cross Stitch got together with Public Assembly to produce an installation at the Sculpture Now?!? Exhibition with the aim of gathering together a community of people to stitch the term SITE for the Embroidered Digital Commons project facilitated by Ele Carpenter.

And we did!

And it was fun!

The opening night was a total riot with a whole pile of people leaping in to participate.  Wine was drunk, cake was scoffed and plenty of stitching was completed.

I was so rapt at how many people got into it.  There was an expected hesitancy to begin with.  People aren’t used to art that you sit on, eat, drink and play with.  And I’m happy to say there was at least one person who didn’t get it at all.  A lovely old bloke took it upon himself to be our heckler with exclamations of “what? what is this? knitting?!?”, “where’s Germaine Greer?!?”.  And as he got drunker through out the evening, the heckling got louder and more verbose.

I could have kissed him.

We didn’t really expect to get a lot done on opening night but surprisingly quite a lot was done.  I was impressed with the number of people who wouldn’t move until their patch was completed.  But we followed up the opening with two day time sessions in the gallery which were a lot more relaxed and focussed on the stitching and discussion (and kids!).

There’s plenty more photos of all the sessions here.

I really enjoyed the day time sessions especially in regards to the discussions that took place.  A big part of the project was to facilitate dialogue but in a very loose way.  We had assigned a discussion theme to each session but weren’t fussed if those themes were touched on.  The main objective was to create a space for creative people to get together and just hang out and TALK.  We live in such a time poor society that it’s a rare thing to just sit and relax, let alone intentionally go somewhere else and do it with other people.  And the conversations did go to some very interesting places!

A massive thanks to the curators Anna and Kelly and to all the people who came and hung out and stitched.  Too deadly.

We didn’t quite complete the embroidery over the space of the show but I’m working on finishing the half finished ones and we’re planning another get together some sunny day soon.  In the mean time, friends are more than encouraged to drop in and pick up a needle!

I was also pretty interested in the gallery surrounds.  Some nice street art around the place. But sadly this awful vacant fenced off bunch of buildings next door.  Clearly council property. Thanks government..

So I said hi.

Sydney, here we come

When I first moved to Australia, Sydney was my first stop. I have an aunty there who’s always been a great friend and at the time some old buddies were based there. I wasn’t there long but it sure was a crazy time. And while Sydney is probably not the kind of place I would chose to live in, it’s definitely a place I like to visit.

Sydney always invokes memories of sunny days, tropical storms, plenty of trees and fabulous bird life. It’s definitely one of those big cities that is so diverse geographically that it’s not hard to find a spot where you feel like you’re in a small town.

So I was pretty excited when Casey and I were contacted early in the year to see if we’d bring some work up for an exhibition. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here!

This Saturday Object Gallery is opening We Craft This City. The Craft Cartel will be there displaying our stockpile of knitted ammunition for the Stop the Pulp Mill campaign. We’ll also be holding a workshop so you can join in and make your own. No experience necessary of course!

We’ll also have some work on the wall. Casey has a couple of pieces in the show and I’m showing three of my larger pieces, including a brand new one, and a series of small pieces.  I’ll do a full write up with pictures after the opening.

Also in the show and holding workshops are the awesome Ebony Bizys and Knitty Gritty and Loopy.

And then! On Saturday night is a screening of Making it Handmade in Annandale. There’s not many tickets left so if you want to come you should get yours quick smart! After the screening, there’ll be a short Q&A with the Director, Anna and Casey and I. Do hope you can make it to see this awesomely inspiring film.

xox
Rayna

p.s. apologies on the lack of blogging recently. If you haven’t heard, we were broken into and had our laptops stolen. I’m still waiting on our insurance company to replace them! In the meantime I’m using a dreadfully slow computer that HATES the internet. It’s hard I tells ya.. Normal sporadic service should resume shortly (I hope).

SITE: Digital Embroidered Commons at Sculpture Now!?!

Righto! Who’s up for a stitch-a-long?

Radical Cross Stitch is teaming up with Public Assembly to create a contribution to the Digital Embroidered Commons project that’s being facilitated by the amazing Ele Carpenter. We will be stitching the term SITE and we want you to help!

We’re creating an installation piece as part of the Sculpture Now!?! exhibition at the Yarra Sculpture Gallery and we are creating a craft room inside the gallery for the purposes of stitching the term together.  And we’d love you to join us.

We will be in the gallery for three making sessions.  Each session complete with cups of tea, baked goods and of course, radical discussion.

“SITE: Location, both as in the fact of being somewhere, and also, as in the answer to the question of “where”, that “somewhere” is. Hence, situation.”

Step into our craft room, make yourself a cuppa and pick up a needle.  All welcome, no experience necessary. Join us as we embrace the radical political and artistic spirit of centuries of craft circles to unpick the big issues of the day.

xxxxx

Public sessions:
Friday 27th August 5-8pm (open session – this is the official opening of the show so will be a tad busy..)
Thursday 2nd September 1-4 (limited spaces, RSVP kids welcome)
Sunday 5th September 1-4 (limited spaces, RSVP kids welcome)

The installation is viewable as a snapshot of a work in progress at all other times

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Sculpture Now!?! will deliver a snapshot of the current thematic and conceptual influences that inform contemporary sculptural practice in Australia. The artists range from emerging to established with an emphasis on innovation and experimentation. The exhibition aspires to shed some light on the myriad of diverse trajectories in which sculptural practice is heading.

Other artists participating: Stelarc, Hannah Bertram, Rod McRae, Karleena Mitchell, Petra Svoboda, Junky Projects, Eliza-Jane Gilchrist, Linelle Septo, Lucie Hallenstein

Making it Handmade

I’m sorry folks, I’ve not really been quite up with the play with the blogging thing recently.  But I’m trying to get better I promise! One really super important thing that I let slip was the fact that I’M IN A FILM! And so is Casey, and Gemma and Pip! And even better, Anna made it (mostly) all by herself!

Making it Handmade is a documentary about:

A seditious and subversive subculture is gaining momentum in Melbourne. But rather than wielding megaphones and placards, they’re cross-stitching slogans on hurricane wire and constructing plush female genitalia from craft supplies.

Following four local women who’ve taken a seemingly staid past-time and injected it with a youthful, modern aesthetic, filmmaker Anna Brownfield shows a side of craft more closely aligned with punk DIY culture than with Martha Stewart and ‘home sweet home’ tapestries.

“I wanted to show that craft was no longer daggy but had moved into a new era and was being reclaimed by women who had been brought up as feminists.” – filmmaker Anna Brownfield

And it’s AWESOME!  Making it Handmade just had its premiere screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival and was insanely popular.  There was only one screening and it was one of the first to sell out.  And there was so many people sad they missed out.  But don’t fret, there are more screenings being planned as I type.  There’s also plans afoot to take the film to other centres so those of you in far off places can see the awesomeness too.

After the screening there was a short panel with Anna, Casey, Pip, Gemma and myself and there was some nice interesting questions asked.  I’ve had some amazing feedback from people since the screening. Friends have told me they had their horizons shifted once again and strangers have got in touch with overwhelming levels of inspiration bubbling out of them!

So were you there? What did you think? What was your favourite bit? My favourite bit was watching all the happy people making stuff and seeing my now three and a half year old looking little and cute as a one year old!  It was exciting for her too.  It was the first time Tara had ever been to the movies and she was in it! Not many kids can say THAT.

For more information and to keep up with future screening news check out Anna’s blog http://www.annabrownfield.blogspot.com I’ll try let you know too. But yeah, bit slack on the blogging..

xox

Talking Craft and Crafting Craft

Hi folks

How are ya? Things are cruising along rather nicely in Radical Cross Stitch land; projects slowly coming to completion, babies growing nicely, plenty of baking going on. Goodness this winter is a bit chilly isn’t it? Really can’t wait for Spring and Summer to brighten our lives again.

In the meantime, there’s a couple of events coming up you should know about.

Firstly, as part of the State of Design Festival, the Craft Cartel is going to be part of a panel discussion during the Counter Point project at Melbourne Central.  Together with Citizens of Elysium, Clothing Exchange and The Social Studio, we’ll be chatting about the social and environmental realities of consumerist culture and what the alternatives are.  I’m really looking forward to this event, there’s some great people on the panel and it’s part of a really interesting and subversive larger project.  I do hope you can come along!

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Next up on the events calendar is SUPER TOP SECRET and I truly can’t tell you about it yet.  But it is ACE!!!!!! and it’s about craft and it has some other super people involved and it’s in Melbourne on August 1st. So put that day in your diary, I swear I’ll tell you all the details as soon as I can. One word though. SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! Ok one more word, POPCORN.

Flicking over in the calendar a bit the Craft Cartel are heading to Sydney in October to participate in We Craft This City at Object Gallery.  We’re pretty super excited about this one! We may even be heading up a bit earlier to do some sunny, spring time crafting in the park to get people ready and excited about the show.  Will let you know if that happens.  But what’s definitely happening is some hard core Craft Cartel knitted dynamite action.  And you can be part of the fun! Just pop over to the tutorial and grab yourself some wool.  We’re trying to get the worlds largest knitted ammunition cache together.  We’d LOVE you to help!

Finally 3CR subscribers would have already got your copy (I think..) but the theme of this years Radiothon was ‘Handmade Radio’ and the lovely Nicole asked me to help her make a handmade radio tutorial.  Nicole did some ace instructions for a plushie radio and I contributed some patterns for some speech bubbles to come out of the radio.  Pretty darn fun!

And to help with the super important efforts of keeping community radio on air, I will pledge $20 for anyone who sends me photos of their completed hand made radio.  G’arn!

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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

Craft Cartel Podcast Episode 10: Creative Commons for Crafters

It’s been a YEAR in the making (and I’m not exaggerating..) but finally folks, it’s Episode 10 of the Craft Cartel podcast.

This episode, we do something quite different and check out some of the best the world of Creative Commons music has to offer.  So grab your latest craft project, kick back and enjoy the show.

I decided to let the music speak for itself and leave the ranting to the writing, so what follows is the ideas behind this podcast.  I’m very much interested to hear what others think on these issues.

xox
Rayna

And as always we’d love to hear from you, comment below or drop us a line. And don’t forget to check out the archive if you’re new round here.

The best way to listen to the podcast is to subscribe and download today!

If that doesn’t work you can download the file directly from here.

We really don’t like advertising very much round these parts, so if you like what you hear, please make a donation to help support future episodes. It’s what an ad-free world sounds like.

OK here’s the spiel!

The idea behind Creative Commons or as it is otherwise known as ‘copyleft’ was about trying to find a way for creators of content to protect their work that wasn’t as rigid as the copyright system.  The copyright system is very much geared around stopping people from using your ideas.  Yet there were tons of creative people out there who did want people to use their ideas, they just wanted to be able to put some conditions on the use.  CC is based on the understanding that knowledge isn’t created in a vacuum.  As artists, creators, designers, engineers etc, our knowledge is built on and informed by centuries of knowledge.  The CC movement uses the slogan “standing on the shoulders of giants” which acknowledges that all the creativity, intelligence, technology and risk taking that exists in our world wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for sharing and collaboration.

The notion of copyright, or to claim an idea as something which is exclusively owned, is a very modern phenomenon and for many creators is simply incompatible with the idea that creativity is a community based activity.

The copyleft movement arose out of the free software movement as a response to the hyper patenting that was happening by certain sectors of the software industry (yes, looking at you Mr Gates).  A lot of the stuff that was being patented was not being patented by the person who invented the software.  As most of the ideas were generated by communities of engineers and mathematicians.  The patents were often being granted to the person who applied first.

Software is effectively a pile of equations.  Technically, you’re not supposed to be able to patent a mathematical equation (or nature for that matter, but that’s not stopped Monsanto who want to ‘own’ the food we eat).  But somehow certain people were able to convince the American Patent Office that they should grant patents to software.  And as anyone in the Open Source movement will tell you, this is why proprietary software is so expensive and often inferior to the community created software alternatives eg Firefox (pattern here!).

The same problem applies to the music industry.  While people have been making music and sharing that music for millennia, it has only been recently that the concept of ownership has been applied to music.  The justification for this is of course to ensure that musicians can make an income out of their creativity. But we all know this is rarely the case.  Because the musicians themselves rarely own the copyrights over their music.  It is the recording companies, or as is often the case with very popular songs, private individuals.  Music is not seen as a part of our living culture, rather a commodity that can be bought and sold.  This approach to music creation means it’s about ‘investing’ in the music that will create the most profit for the holder of the rights, not creating awesome music.  This is the main reason there is so much crap music on our airways.

With the introduction of the internet and all the wonderful tools modern technology has to offer it is now totally possible for a musician to make, produce and distribute their own music. It’s still hard work and the profits are still hard to come by, but if we as consumers make an effort to be more conscious about how we buy our music, we could make this chart look a lot nicer for musicians.

(via information is beautiful)

And of course this line of thinking brings me to talk about craft.

While I think it is wonderful that there are so many people out there making, buying and selling craft, I don’t think it’s so wonderful that so many people are adding copyright licenses to their work.  Sadly, I think too many people are doing this because it’s what everyone else does, not because they’ve really thought about it.

Copyright as a way of protecting your work is a very rigid system, and doesn’t allow much flexibility for other people to share, and build upon, your ideas.  And arguably copyright is not that useful a tool if someone does rip off your ideas.

The list of examples of big companies ripping off indie designers is probably 10 times longer than both of my arms combined.  And most of those designers would have a copyright on their work.  But did it do any good stopping them being ripped off?  Clearly not.  So why is it useful?  Well, if you do decide to take someone to court over a copyright violation it is of course helpful to have copyright in the first place.  But you also need to have the legal funds and sadly not many of us have massive bank balances.

What has been more effective recently is the use of the internet in the naming and shaming of copyright violations.  Being named and shamed by big name websites can be enough for violators to pull the offending products.  But of course this doesn’t cover lost income.  But certainly if enough of us decide to boycott companies that rip off indie designers, they’ll certainly lose some.

But back to Creative Commons, if we, as indie designers and makers use Creative Commons licenses we still retain the ability to legally protect our work.  CC licenses are based on copyright, the difference is

“Creative Commons licenses give you the ability to dictate how others may exercise your copyright rights—such as the right of others to copy your work, make derivative works or adaptations of your work, to distribute your work and/or make money from your work. They do not give you the ability to restrict anything that is otherwise permitted by exceptions or limitations to copyright—including, importantly, fair use or fair dealing—nor do they give you the ability to control anything that is not protected by copyright law, such as facts and ideas.” (source)

This means if someone uses some of your work to inspire some of theirs they have to source you as opposed to a copyright license where they’d have to pretend they’d never heard of you.  Which is a bit sad really.  Because wouldn’t you rather hear about the work you’re inspiring? And more importantly, wouldn’t you like your customers to hear about it too?

So, as a cross stitch pattern designer, I put a Creative Commons license on all of my work.  My license says you can’t re-sell my ideas but you can change them so long as you share them with the public under a similar license.  This means you can buy my pattern and share it with your stitching group (something most cross stitch designers HATE).  I also allow people to sell finished pieces that result from the sale of my patterns so long as they’re hand stitched and they acknowledge me as the designer.  If I had a simple copyright on my patterns, people wouldn’t technically be able to do that.

On a philosophical level, CC licenses allow me to proudly put my work into a community based sphere while still enabling myself to earn a (very) small income from my work.  I get the best of both worlds because I can design, make and sell like any other crafter but I also get to develop creative relationships with my customers – whom I can now treat as friends and colleagues.

As you can see CC enables non-heirarchical relationships.  And I reckon that’s what craft is all about, don’t you?

Copyright is something worth paying attention to if you like to stitch and sell things out of books (or write books for that matter).  I’ve seen tons of people that sell stitched pieces from a popular pattern books.  I’m pretty sure in most cases the author doesn’t mind but if one day their publisher decided they did mind (since it’s usually the publisher that holds the copyright), it would be within their legal rights to sue all of those makers for damages.  That would be both sad for the makers and the authors.

The other big issue that copyright and craft raises of course is if we have the right to copyright craft.

Craft is part of our culture.  And the massive body of ideas, skills, designs and techniques that make up what we call ‘craft’ is the product of millennia of practitioners sharing their work.  It is in fact, our cultural commons.  We all own it, so who says some of us have the right do draw a fence around some of it and call it ours and then charge others for the right to use it?

I would argue we most certainy don’t.  But it is happening, and it’s not just techniques, styles and designs that are being copyrighted, patented and trademarked, but even very common terms and sayings within craft practise including this most famous example.

I hope the craft community can have more discussions around these issues so we can educate ourselves about what this all means.  And more importantly, make some decision about how we, as a community, want to treat and protect the knowledge that we, as a community, hold and own.

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More resources:

creativecommons.org
archive.org
freemusicarchive.org
Phlow Magazine
aaahh records
Beep! Beep! Back up the truck

Track listing:

1. Princess Melodiae – Aleksi Virta (…Meets Torsi)
2. The Confrontation – Crookram (Through Windows)
3. Bag of Nothingness – Comfort Fit (Bag of Nothingness)
4. Les Mains Sales – Dustmotes (Beats for the Subverted)
5. Grizzly – The Banjo Consortium (Fall Is For Lovers)
6. Bracken Bed – Malty Media (Nivel Del Mar – Sounds for Soulsurfers)
7. A Heart That Beats No More – Ryan Harvey (Rise Like Lions)
8. Rise Like Lions – Brenna Sahatjian (Rise Like Lions)
9. Pirates – Entertainment For The Braindead (Roadkill)
10. Treehouse Lullaby – The Wind Whistles (Animals Are People Too)
11. Making Your Own Stuff – The Wind Whistles (Animals Are People Too)
12. Resolutions – Entertainment For The Braindead (Hydrophobia)
13. Nightlighter – Big Blood (Big Blood & the Bleeding Hearts)
14. Childhood Friend – Emilie Lund (Emilie Lund EP)
15. That I Love You – Het Gloren (Acrobaat)
16. Barefoot Girl - Twizzle ((Nivel Del Mar – Sounds for Soulsurfers)
17. Satisfied Mind – My Bubba & Mi (How It’s Done In Italy)
18. Through Windows – Crookram (Through Windows)

Enjoy
xox

Been some serious making going on

You must forgive the quiet going on here recently.  Those of you who follow this site/facebook/twitter would’ve been aware I was pregnant.  Well, not no more!   For a shorter version of the tale with less gory detail and more humour and profanity, have a read of Casey’s re-enactment.  Otherwise, here’s the tale in all its excitement…

We’ve got two!

Woke up to contractions on the morning of the 18th. They were steady at about half an hour apart most of the day. So I spent it in bed saving up energy, snoozing, playing mindless computer games etc. Tara – our 3 year old – decided to put nail polish in her eye so Karl nipped her to the doctor in the morning. Can never all be about mum!

My contractions picked up around 6pm and by about 9.30 the midwife was around and I was down to 5 min gaps. All was going pretty normal until about midnight when I started to feel really frustrated because it felt like I really wasn’t progressing. I didn’t have any control around my groin. Couldn’t relax or push or anything. It felt numb, like I’d had a local anaesthetic. But it sure as hell hurt everywhere else, despite the awesome relaxing power of our birthing pool.

Before my labour I’d spent a fair amount of time meditating on the birth of my first child. Since that was such a dream birth I wanted to be able to visualise it happening again! But it turned out that preparation came in more handy in helping me identify when things weren’t progressing like last time.

At about 1am I started to really feel like there was something wrong and started talking about getting me to a hospital. My waters still hadn’t broken so the midwife suggested we try breaking them first and see if that moves things along. So we gave it a go, but they were so tight they wouldn’t break. Spent another hour in the pool and then tried again. This time they broke and it made a massive difference. 5 mins later we gave birth to a baby girl!

Had some nice time cuddling her in the water but it was a bit hard to bring her up high on my chest as her cord was really short. About 5 mins later I started getting more contractions and really had the need to push. I figured it was just the placenta and deciding that I was well and truly over it just pushed it out. But when it came out it only went halfway and stuck. I reached down to feel what was going on and it felt really hard. My midwife got me to pull my hips up so she could have a good look. Her first panicky thought was that I’d pushed out my uterus since it was so hard. But then we both saw a foot!

Holy crap call ambulance!

I had a boy twin yet to come out and he was breach. The paramedics on the phone told me to get out of the pool and onto a chair with my legs up high and just push him out. That was the most intense 10 minutes of my life. I was pushing and pushing but baby still wasn’t coming out.  I then experienced this amazing moment of clarity and my brain just clicked on and said you’ve got another baby and he needs your help, get him out now! So I took a deep breath and pushed until out he flew. Through the midwifes hands even..

Just as she was cutting him out of his placenta which was still in tact, the paramedics ran in and took over care. He had a cord around his neck, wasn’t breathing and had no pulse. After 5 mins of resus they got his pulse back but were still taking care of his breathing when they took him to hospital. I was then able to birth the first placenta – which was delightfully easy after all the other bits! It was last to come out since she was on top and had pushed past her brother to come out – thus the intense labour! We spent about half an hour calming down, cleaning up, feeding baby girl etc then followed to the hospital.

Brilliantly, my three year old stayed asleep through all of this!

We then had the most intense week ever. Long story short, he suffered from Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy, basically a shortage of oxygen and blood flow to the brain which can be really really serious. At one point there was also evidence of a stroke. The first couple of days he was having frequent seizures and was looking very ill. We were bracing ourselves for some pretty severe brain damage and early on there was conversations about the possibility of decisions around life support. But since then he has done nothing but improve. And on the following Monday we finally got him to have an MRI scan which came back normal. Including the news that the stroke probably didn’t happen, it was swelling on the brain which looked like a stroke. That’s now gone. So while he’s still got a way to go before he’s called a healthy baby his chances at a ‘normal’ life are almost on par as with any new baby. It’s been nothing short of a miracle – hugely helped by an amazing care team in the hospital. He truly couldn’t have been in better hands.

After a couple of days out of intensive care and into special care, the team decided to transfer him to our local hospital which also has a special care unit. This meant it was heaps easier for us to visit. And a less intensive unit meant the focus was very much on bringing him home. And it was only a couple of days before the doctor invited us to ‘bed in’ with him so we stayed at the hospital and were in charge of his care but the nurses were on hand if we needed them.

Unbelievably, less than two weeks after a pretty traumatic birth, we got to bring our little legend home.

We named the babies Curtis Taonga and Jamari (hasn’t got a middle name yet..). When I told my Dad the news on the first day he said oh he was just being a gentleman and letting his sister go first. I really liked that take on it. So given Curtis means courteous and polite we thought that was appropriate. His middle name is a Maori word and it means treasured object or person. He’s our polite treasure! Jamari is French and means strong girl warrior. Since she likes to lead the way! She’s an awesome baby and is doing everything she should be. Sleeps like a legend!

I’m recovering pretty well. I had a couple of stitches and ended up having a blood transfusion a couple of days after delivery. But home and settled now and starting to get our heads around the realities of three kids… We have to buy a new car, eek!

So that’s a really long story short. It’s been insanely surreal. It’s only been a week but already our lives have been completely changed. But thanks to some serious amounts of positive energy, unbelievably amazing support from friends and family and liberal doses of tears, it’s definitely a change for the good.

Wow we have a wee tribe!

Lots and lots of love and kisses.

Rayna and the rest of the Braybrook massif!

I just can’t get enough

As you’ve probably noticed by now I’m a sucker for big projects. So I just had to make another one. One more Super Mario Bros 3 map, world 2 this time. Size: 59 x 18 cm on 21 count Aida. It took just under nine months to finish (although I did mix it  up with other projects during that time).

(Click for a bigger image)

And a close-up to show off the stitches.

Gocco!

If you’re a twitter follower you might have picked up a while back that I scored a new Gocco set for super cheap and it was PRETTY BLIMMIN EXCITING!

It took me quite a while to gather up the confidence to have a go. It’s all new and scary, you see. But I finally had a project I really wanted to do so I hitched up my pants and leapt in.

I was armed with the awesome tutorial by Pip which I wholeheartedly recommend checking out. Even if you’re not planning on doing the fabric thing and printing on paper with actual gocco paint, this tutorial is super helpful. I definitely used Pip’s tutorial alongside the official instructions and it made heaps more sense with both.

So I’ve now made TWO different screens and made a heap of patches.

The first lot were made as some pretty banners for vacant blocks of land.  We’ve attached ribbons on the corners so they can be tied on to fences.  I thought this was a good first project since the prints don’t need to be perfect and we can’t be too attached to them since they’ll probably get taken down.

Here’s a bunch drying.

And here’s a couple in action!  The first one was in St Kilda and the second was on Malvern Road somewhere

FUN!  Part of my little creative contributions to the realestate4ransom.com campaign highlighting the stupid waste of land we’ve got going on round the place.

The next project I did was in honour of Buy Nothing Day 09 and also as my wee action towards Copenhagen.  Being seven and a half months pregnant does preclude a fair amount of activism so I took the creative option!

I got the idea after a cool chat with an awesome Friends of the Earth volunteer at the Green New Deal conference.  Sorry I can’t remember your name! Hope you see these and like   When I get around to sewing up some more I’ll send some to the FoE shop.  I decided to border some of them with small black satin ribbon, just to make them a bit glam.  I also decided I very much like printing on calico.  It seems to pick up the ink best and it looks nice too.

Printing on fabric with Gocco is a little bit hard and takes a bit of perseverance.  I’d very much like to try it with someone else doing some of them!

What is really easy though is printing on paper!

Last weekend I went to the open studio for the super cool Gemma Jones.  The open studios were part of the Big West Festival – which was also super cool!  Can’t wait til the next one! (I should also write about that – especially the knitted bridge installation – but I reckon it won’t happen so go check out the other cool crafty stuff on their website).

Gemma gave a couple of demos on how to use a Gocco and we all got to have a go.  It was MOST FUN.  I picked up some new prints for my wee girls new room so the walls are quickly filling up with rad art.

Those prints were done on an old sex guide book.  Some of the pages were hilarious!  My favourite was ‘what to say in bed – and when not to laugh’.  Genius.

So now I’ve gotten over ‘the fear’ I’m psyched to do more!