Dissent is Patriotic
I had this moment of trepidation when opening this email this morning. The subject was ‘celebrating the 4th in fine fashion’. There’s been a rash of July 4th crafts going round the internet at the mo. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with July 4 crafts, I just get nervous around patriotic fervour…
But I was much relieved to discover the link was to this super cool bookmark
It’s by RCSP crew Katie Lee and I reckon it’s ace. She has this to say:
Super simple, I know, but in order to celebrate any sort of “Independence” we must also celebrate the thinkers, artists and activists (including ourselves) who don’t follow or agree with the status quo, and are always questioning, learning, creating and sharing.
Hear hear! I reckon some of the ‘founding ‘fathers’ would roll in their graves if they could see the state of the empire.
Katie Lee and I have been working on a wee collaboration too. Stay tuned!
Some Crafty Things
If I wasn’t furiously cleaning the house before my mum comes to visit (just kidding mum, it’s ALWAYS this spotless!) I’d be going to this craft night at Loophole Community Centre:
Create Date Craft Night, Thursday July 10th, 7-9pm, 834a High Street, Thornbury
Enjoy a night with friends and crafts. Anyone and anything welcome; knitting, painting, pastels, sewing, etc. Bring your own project or start something new. Some materials are available here. Tea and coffee by donation
Hey and if you need some inspiration for some cross stitch designs TiGER has these ace links to some font tools.
Firstly this site has six great font charts. It’s not in english, but it’s pretty self explanatory.
Secondly the Stitch Point website has six ace text generators. You just choose your font and then enter in whatever text you want. Super groovy and useful for those of you who don’t want to use a whole software program to do it.
OK you’ve got no excuses now, get stitching!
xox
Free Tibet Denim Jacket
FINALLY!
Sorry this took so long but I managed to hurt my back and I was so sore I couldn’t even cross stitch! My partner knew there was really something wrong with me when I ignored the stitching.
So here’s my cross stitch contribution to the Free Tibet creativity movement sweeping the globe at the moment (check out the poster art featured on Groundswell). And my contribution to the Free Tibet XStitch Competition.
And here’s the pattern if anyone wants to use it. Click on the image for a pdf pattern with colour guide and cross stitch instructions.
I also promised earlier to give a bit of a tutorial on how to use waste aida fabric to cross stitch directly on to fabric. So here’s a couple of pics to show how I did it.
The first thing you need to do is secure the aida fabric to your chosen fabric. You can either tack the corners with some stitches which you can remove later. Or you can hold the two pieces of fabric together with an embroidery hoop.
I forgot to take a photo while I was still stitching but I used a hoop to secure the aida fabric to the jacket. I’m sure you can use your imagination as to what it would look like.
Once you’ve finished stitching, remove the hoop or stitches and then trim the aida fabric as close to your stitching as possible.
Then you carefully pull all the threads out, starting from the edge.
I also try and cut the aida between letters where there was a bit of room so there was a bit less to pull through.
My advice is to not pull to hard on a thread if it’s really tight, just move on to another section. Sometimes when you’re stitching you can accidentally stitch through the aida so it’s best to leave those threads until the end to deal with. The last thing you want to do is break one of your stitched threads!
In the end it will look like this
Hopefully that’s useful for you readers out there. I reckon it’s a great way to embellish clothes and bags and other things you carry/wear around. Use your imagination, there is a billion things to stitch on if you think about it hard enough!
Free Tibet XStitch Entry
Check this out everyone, here is an entry to the Free Tibet XStitch Comp from Angela in Mexico. I’ve included her description below because I thought it was great that she outlined her design process as well. (Click on image to see it larger).
I had a lot of fun doing this. It the second ever cross stitch I have designed myself, and I’m pretty proud of it. Plus I think it’s the biggest one I’ve ever done. I usually like the short, quick gratification projects. But at the moment I don’t have a job, so I have a lot of time on my hands to cross stitch. Sorry the quality isn’t that great. I just moved down to Mexico and the only aida cloth I can find here is close to a 14ct. and has a very uneven weave. And I don’t like stitching with anything more than 2-strands. Just a personal quirk. I usually like 18ct. fabric. I can’t wait to get my mom to mail me some from home. So unfortunately there is a lot of white showing through, accentuated by the large blocks of colour. But it looks really good from a few feet away, which works great, cause it is up on my wall, and you can’t see all the tiny little flaws.
So the writing in the cross stitch says ‘Tibetan Freedom’ in Tibetan. I did it in orange, because of the Project Orange I read about on your site. That’s a great idea. I can’t wait to see how the Olympics will pan out. Unfotunately I’m one of the many who have decided to boycott the games, which is sad cause I kid a went to school with is competing this year. Looks like I have some decisions to make. Anyways, I added the dove from the group Students for a Free Tibet, and then stitched the top part of the Tibetan flag in the backgroud. I wanted to add some mountains and a quote from the Dalai Lama, but I would’ve had to make it bigger to get the effect that I wanted, and it was tough for me to even finish this size.
I think it looks awesome! I am so super impressed with the work that’s gone into this. Well done Angela!
I reckon this is a winner!
I’m almost finished mine, it currently says ree Tibet! I’ll hopefully post it up later today.
New Patterns!
It’s been a wee while, so here comes some patterns!
One is free and one is for sale and they’re both quite different.
This first one I designed with my little girls bedroom wall in mind and it’s for all of you out there with a bit of anarchist in you.
You can purchase this pattern in the Radical Rags Etsy Store here.
The second one I made while playing with ideas for the Free Tibet XStitch Competition. I decided to do something different, and I doubt I’ll ever get around to stitching this. But I’d love it if someone else did!
Unfortunately I neglected to keep a shot of it in its entirety so you will have to download the pdf to see the actual pattern. But it’s the following quote from His Holiness the Dalai Lama from the 1989 Nobel Lecture:
Because we all share this small planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. That is not just a dream, but a necessity.
Pattern download here
5 Days To Go!
Yes everyone, 5 days until the end of the Free Tibet X Stitch Competition!
I’m furiously stitching trying to finish my design (which is obviously not eligible for prizes..) so I hope everyone else’s designs are going well!
I’ve been coming up with some plans on what to do with entries too. You’ll have to wait though..
Yay looking forward to seeing your entries!
People like you just fuel my fire
Okay, so I know I shouldn’t let jerks like Steven Wells (that Kakariki mentioned in her latest post) piss me off as much as they do, but I just couldn’t help myself. It is probably stupid to give him the attention he so obviously craves, by letting his sexist punk scene rambles annoy me. But since I am one of those humorless feminist crafters that he’s so intimidated by, and I had some time to spend stitching yesterday, I decided to make him a little present. Think I’m gonna send it to him together with a copy of the SCUM manifesto.
And craft begat consciousness
Some of you will remember the pattern I designed for the venus symbol aka the feminist symbol. At the time I designed it I didn’t really have any plans to actually stitch it, it just kind of came to me so I put it together. I guess I knew that the right purpose would come along some time.
I scored this hoodie down at the local opshop and thought it would be perfect to stitch on. Dunno if any of you have stitched on polar fleece but it is one of my favourites. It has just that right level of fluffiness to hold the floss really well. Sometimes when you use waste fabric in this way it leaves the floss sitting a bit out from the fabric and it never looks quite as good as while you were stitching it. But polar fleece solves that issue beautifully. And even better it gives it a cute little wonkiness which just proves it wasn’t done by a boring ol’ machine!
I did use some different variations on the colours compared to what it says in the pattern (’cause I didn’t have them on me), just lighter versions. If anyone wants to know the specific colours, let me know and I’ll go look them up. Using the lighter colours worked really well against the grey and they seem to glow a bit. I’m super happy with how that worked out.
And the hoodie itself is really cool. It has that great ski hood neck going on so you keep super warm. And it has nice long arms and body. AND it has pockets (with hidden zips) so it’s a useful garment! What is it with women’s clothing not having pockets, or even worse, fake pockets? That’s just stupid. And it didn’t have anything written on it which is rare in this day and age, so a super find!
This wee baby (the hoodie, not the model!) is for sale in the radical rags etsy store and is absolutely one of a kind. Yeah, I’m gutted it’s too small for me!
hoopla #2!
This is the project that has been sitting on my to-do list the longest this year, and it’s finally done!
The long-awaited second issue of hoopla is finally here featuring all things radically crafty.
Contents include
Fence Stitching
Melbourne Craft Cartel
Addington Women’s Revolutionary Craft Circle
No Spend Craft Month
Wild Earth Quilt Project
Two cross stitch patterns and a crochet pattern
plus more writing, pictures and fun!
Brought to you by radicalcrossstitch.com hoopla is a collection of political, crafty inspiration. Pictures and rants all tied up with string.
You can buy your very own copy at the radical rags etsy store.
And the best bit is that I’ve already got content for issue #3 which I’m thinking will be sometime near the end of the year.
Thanks a million to all the awesome people who helped bring this one together!
A revolutionary rest
Film maker Jim Finn (no relation to the Te Awamutu boys I’m guessing) has a diverse portfolio of talents and has also stitched these pillows featuring Communist Heroes. And the stitching is gorgeous.
I was most interested in the process he went through to create them:
I chose needlepoint because I grew up with it. In St Louis, girls make their boyfriends and brothers needlepoint belts and women needlepoint pillows and church cushions among other things. I designed the images I wanted and sent them to the Sign of the Arrow, a needlepoint store in an affluent suburb of St. Louis. They hand-paint the image on the canvas and I stitch across it and then make them into pillows. A number of people have helped on this project