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In an insane moment of procrastination, radical cross stitch and twitter combined forces yesterday. So if you’re a fan of the minutiae, come follow us!
Takin’ over the town
Craftster user craftcore has done these two gorgeous embroidered graffiti pieces. I especially like the crochet one. Especially in this time of a global economic crisis, I’d rather think we were using at as an excuse to create sustainable and self-sufficient communities rather than have a violent uprising. Sounds much more interesting (and less painful) to me.
Craftcore has also made some contributions to the upcoming issue of Hoopla which is perilously close to the photocopier!
Also found on craftster was plavalaguna’s version of the Firefox pattern which has been getting a fair few hits recently. So if you’ve been wondering what it looks like finished, here it is!
Check out her website and deviant art
Clever People Rule
Especially clever people that like to hack the crazy world we live in.
Like Evan Roth who has created very thin laser cut stainless steel plates designed to slip in your luggage and cheer up your friendly local customs agent. Getting there is indeed half the fun. I’m wondering if we should get some ‘not a property developer’ plates for our upcoming Vanuatu trip..
The amusing part of this project for me was discovering that the TSA actually has their own blog. And this project did indeed pop up on there, prompting an extremely long and amusing converstion, I recommend a read!
I found a link to Evans project on Wooster, where I also found this nice project:
Genius.
Just one more…
Ok, so I just had to make one more video game stitch… More precisely the map from Zelda – Link’s awakening, my absolute favorite game when I was little.
And some close ups:
Finished size about 24,5 x 22 cm (9,5 x 8,5 inches), 160 x 144 stitches.
This was fun, but now I’ll leave the game nostalgia alone for a while. Time to retun to the radical stitching!
GRL Takes on South Korea
Have you been paying attention to the recent protests in South Korea about the US Beef Trade Agreement? There’s been some crazy stuff going on there and the S. Koreans have been doing an awesome job of maintaining their bad ass reputation of amazing protest on agricultural and sufficiency issues. I don’t think anyone in the anti-FTA movement will ever forget the ultimate sacrifice made by Lee Kyung-hae in Cancun in 2003 when he look his own life on the wall in the middle of the WTO talk protests.
So the cool kids at the Graffiti Research Lab decided to head over and join in the fun. Check this one out and see what they got up to
Korean Beef – Graffiti Research Lab from fi5e on Vimeo.
Props: Wooster Collective
My favourite things
Ooh I love the internet being full of clever people.
The Social Design Network recently held a competition called Power to the Pedal “This competition looks for ways to enhance the biking experience with designs for accessories or add-ons to existing bikes.”
There’s some great entries and I urge you to check them all out. But my absolute favourite combines my love of bikes, bubbles and gardening.
It’s called Bloom and it’s a pedal powered bubble delivery seed distributor!
The Bloom device is meant to be a subversive and inspirational tool for our concrete jungles. Similar to the tuft of a dandelion as the wind carries the seedling, we propose a way of dispersing seedlings with bubbles and bicycling. Seeds are co-mingled with a bubble mixture and upon pedaling to your destination , you release the floating seeds which land in cracks and crevices throughout the city streets. Over time, the seeds grow into flowers and plants to create a green “fringe” to our sidewalks and streets.
Using natural ingredients; vegetable based soap and seeds, combine together to make a dissolving “nugget”. The resulting mixture resides in a reservoir inside Blooms aluminum housing. The housing is attached to the lower frame near the rear tire, similar to a exhaust pipe. Upon pedalling, air enters the front of Bloom and spins a pinwheel inside which picks up a small drop of the seed/bubble mixture and blows a bubble carrying a seed out the back as “exhaust”.
Our inspiration comes from the tale of Johnny Appleseed, where he would spread seeds everywhere he went planting apple trees for future generations.
Brought to you by the geniuses of the week Matthew Boyko and Christina Ng.
I SO WANT ONE!!!!!!!!
props: rebel:art
Firefox Pattern
One of our Radical Cross Stitch Posse members Emma put a call out the other day for a pattern of the Firefox logo. I couldn’t remember seeing anywhere. But I know they’re in demand ’cause people are always finding my website searching for linux cross stitch (there’s a big linux penguin pattern on the diy page).
So I thought, hey, why don’t I just make one. I can’t exactly help the project with my programming skills (read: none) so how ’bout just contribute some fan craft. Surely there is nothing cooler than nana core, nerd core fan craft?
So here’s a pattern, click on the image to download the pdf of the pattern and colours and complete cross stitch instructions.
Enjoy.
For the geek in me
Lately I haven’t been doing so much politically inclined crafting. Instead I’ve entertained my inner geek with an enormous cross stitch I’ve been wanting to make for a couple of years. The thought of the amount of time it would take to finish has put me off, but finally it’s done!
A cross stitch of an entire map from Super Mario Bros 3!
And a few close-ups:
It took about three months to finish, and since I was in between jobs for most of those months I had lots and lots of spare time to work on it. Finished size 28 x 34 cm (with about 50 000 stitches…).
Now I want to make the “Zelda – a link to the past” world map! But maybe that would be taking on too much?
Footscray Officially Rules
In the weekend I had the joy of going on a crafternoon trip with the cool women from Kaotic Kraft Kuties and Brown Owls. We went to the Melbourne Print Museum. Which I didn’t even know existed! And I hang out across the road at the Footscray Community Arts Centre quite regularly. Although in my defence, they have pretty, shall we say, limited signage.
So yet one more cool thing to do on Moreland Street, those of you who look down your noses at Footscray are absolutely missing out.
We got to learn about all sorts of different types of printing. And got right into typesetting as well. Some of us got quite excited about learning what some of the lingo we use in relation to modern printing originated.
And the best bit for me, since I’m completely addicted to stamps at the mo, is that you could buy your own little slug made on their Linotype machine for $2!!! Even better you could make it yourself for $5!
So with a machine looking remarkably like one of these
I got one of these
I was gonna take photos but I had a baby on my hip and everyone else was, so check out Pips and Gemmas pics, or even better go check it out for yourself. And if you need any small print jobs done and you want them to look GOOD, I’d go and see this crew. I don’t reckon it would be possible to print something ugly with all the beautiful machines they have.
And you might notice a new banner on the front page. I’ve been planning on having a few of these on rotate for a while, I just haven’t gotten around to it. But things are changing around here, don’t get comfortable.
Feminist Craft
Woah so I just did a post about crafty actions and then immediately found two more projects. These ones are more DiY so have a go. They both came from the innaugural Down Under Feminist Carnival at Hoyden About Town – which has some great stuff on it, check it out.
These projects are both from this absolutely fascinating project called Fifty Two Acts. I urge you to have a really good look around this site because not only are there some really clever projects on there. But the awesome Sajbrfem who has put it together has done a fantastic job or articulating her rational behind her processes. It’s something I try hard to do because I also come at my art and craft from an open source/hacktivist basis.
Firstly this gorgeous open source pattern for a boob hat which is a follow on from this discussion
And the best bit is that I recently learned to crochet and I reckon I could actually make one of these. I’m gonna have to start looking out for the right wool on my opshop missions.
The other project that she’s started which I reckon is great is the feminist knitalong project called Knit Club. She’s designed a scarf pattern and is feeding 10 rows of the pattern at a time as blog posts. She used the knitpro app and when you finish the scarf it has a special message for all those who participate.
So she’s up to 18 out of 52 projects. I can not wait to see what else comes out of this. I dare say you’ll see more of it here.