They’re never ending….

Splityarn’s done a corka of a tutorial for sewing a vinyl pencil case for a binder. Some other tutorials in her archives.

Over at Gerbera Designs a cut-out vinyl pouch and very sweet embroidery tote tutorial for your threads.

Bella Dia has an excellent idea for showcasing fabric as wall hangings.

And for you speedy crafty types One Hour Craft.

Over at Lisa’s there’s a very interesting post and discussion happening in the comments about time management.

Natasha Fialkov of Luxe Fibre has posted a great tutorial on her blog of how to make these mixed media paper beads. I think they are just beautiful! This project is full of possibilities, and I am sure that you guys will have a blast experimenting with glues and gold leaf and all kinds of papers and pigments, and maybe even fabrics!

Thank you Natasha for use of the great photos! You can see more of her paper beads here on Flickr.

**be sure to take note of Natashas Melting Pot warning at the bottom of the tutorial.**

Naughty Waltz

I recently discovered the work of artist Christopher Hynes, a man with a love for lost objects who creates what he calls “visual poems.” He opens a dialogue of social commentary by using drawers and items that are leftover from construction sites and remodeling jobs, basically any “leftover materials from our throwaway society” as his canvas. His works are thoughfully put together using vintage materials and three dimensional objects. Whether the piece is serious, whimsical or just plain outlandish, they are all beautifully crafted.

Heart Of Stone

A lovely post at turkey feathers about the gentle joys of embroidery. She says “I’m happy to see it coming back around again, even though there are those who will tell you that it never went anywhere. It seems as though it’s always been here in one form or another, like a comforting old friend. It’s what I refer to as my “cheap therapy” anyway. Some advice on simple projects as well.

If the knitting world caught up on blogs and podcasts early on, the ceramics world lags a wee bit behind. I find this funny, because blogging is an excellent way of showing your work, exchanging experiences and meeting each other over the cultural boundaries.

Juicecups by Mary Anne Davies

However, times are changing and to my delight I’m finding more and more pottery related blogs popping up. Over the next few weeks I thouhgt I’d introduce you to some of these.

Davistudio is one of the first ceramic blogs I came into contact with. It’s written by Mary Anne Davies and she reports on things like kiln openings, sustainability and craft fairs.

In her post from August 26th, Mary Anne writes about micro enterprises and making a living as an artist. I’m really looking forward to following the development of this topic.

Large oval bowl by Diana Fayt

Diana Fayt is the potter behind One Black Bird and in her blog you get to peak behind the scenes and follow the life of a studio potter.

Oval green vase by Emily Murphy

Emily Murphy calls her blog potteryblog and even though it’s not updated very regularly the posts that are there can be enjoyed over and over again! She soda fires her work and if you want to know more about that firing process her blog and site are excellent resources.

Next up: two Toronto based potter bloggers.

Excellent tutorial on how to make a fabric patchwork belt - very cute, on creative little daisy blog.

Related resources:
Thimble posted a quick how to make an elastic belt here
hgtv on how to make a belt buckle for your fabric belt from a tin can

Want to buy one instead - here are cute handmade fabric and ribbon belts to check out:
a red toile belt at shy siren
denim paisley belt from three chickadees
mod fabric belts at pixelgirl shop

Our quilting sisters in Gee’s Bend have had images of their quilts captured on US postage stamps. You can buy them on the US Postal Service website. This is poetic justice to me - women of color in one of the most economically depressed areas of our country get their craft on postage stamps. Best news I’ve heard all day.

a daily, mundane, banal object, which we all seem
to posses, though we rarely look at. the ‘silent
servants’….. an object so basic yet so useful,
that has the quality of serving many functions in
addition to it’s original one.

quote from design boom ‘clothes peg iconography’

I am fascinated with clothes pegs, all the wonderful things you can make from them, clothes pin / peg dolls are so adorable and so versatile. List of resources and ideas here.

This interest in clothes pegs has been re-ignited by my discovery of this exhibition, from the collections of yoav ziv and
gad charny, curated jointly with yaacov kaufman, found through art for housewives, at design boom.

one piece plastic versions of the original wooden pegs

variations on a theme -’gypsy’ peg, classical turned wood peg, and two current versions - ‘back to nature’ and a peg with a hinge and a tension element made from recycled bicycle tube.

Sandra Robledo is a freelance designer, specializing in crochet jewelry. The natural materials and the poetry of her pieces are the characteristics of her work. She is very creative and versatile: makes collage, designs child’s clothes or shoes!Every collection is born with a new enthusiasm and fresh ideas. And i know she is keen to convey this passion to others.

—————–

Sandra Robledo es una de mis diseñadoras preferidas, especialmente sus joyas en crochet.Los materiales naturales y la poesía de sus piezas son las caracteristicas de su trabajo.Además,es creativa y polifacética: hace collage, diseña ropa de niños o zapatos! Cada colección nace con un nuevo entusiamo y originales propuestas; y sé que es capaz de trasmitir toda esa pasión que refleja sus piezas a otros.

Canvas prints from Earthworks

For colour and pattern inspiration, or just for the sensation of my eyes being made happy, print & pattern is a fabulous blog to visit.

Scrapbook paper fromTwo Peas in a Bucket

From scrapbook papers to textiles, printed crockery and other household goods, to illustrators from all over, she finds a cornucopia - and provides links.

Illustrations by Bo Lundberg

It’s inspiration in all sorts of ways - colour, pattern, design, shape, line, the moderne, retro, funky - and sourced from around the world.

Bit slow off the mark here, you all heard/seen the Plummies? Quick get on over and vote by 31 August. Whip Up’s nominated for Best Craft-Related Website!

We’ve looked around, and so far, there have been no awards that specifically target the crafting world. Well, we aim to change all that with the Plummies. The Plummies exist to recognize excellence in all the many facets of crafting. Plummy award winners are nominated, and then voted on, by their peers. There will be winners in many seperate categories, with a “Best Overall Crafting” award as the grand prize.

Plummy Award winners will be recognized with official certificates, as well as buttons they can display on their website. Winners in each category will each receive reconstructed Plummy trophies, as well as the official certificate. The winner of “Best Overall Crafting” will receive the official certificate, the Plummy trophy, and a subscription to the Plum of the Month Club. All crafters should take pride in the fact that their peers have recognized their talent, as well as the hard work and dedication that goes into making their DIY business successful.

One of the goals of the Plummy Awards is to introduce you to crafters you may never have seen work from before. So please, view each nominee’s webpage before you vote in a category.

They also offer the Plum of the Month.

Each month, a different delightful surprise will be waiting for you in your mailbox. Rachel and Amy comb the globe, looking for the very best in handmade DIY goodness to include in their club. Because of their wholesale relationships with vendors, they are able to get very good discounts on prospective Plums, which means for your $15 subscription payment, you will receive upwards of $30 in merchandise!

Quilts and other textile works have been used over time in many commemorative ways, recording battles and griefs, events and people. The Bicentenary/Bicentennial celebrations in Australia and the US, for example, generated many quilts focusing on local areas.

The Yarra River travels from the hills inland through the city of Melbourne, Australia and to Port Phillip Bay and the sea. It is the focus of a quilt project which has invited A4-sized contributions from the community.

Contributed by Ju-Juen Chew.

While the final quilt will be housed in sections in the shires along the river, the whole is on display in Melbourne to the end of August, 2006. More information here, including pictures of contributed pieces. You can also read the contributors’ notes on their work.

Contributed by Olga Walters

If you know of a significant community quilt/textile project such as this, with a website enabling us to view images and learn more, please post the link as a comment.

The fashion catalogs for fall have some lovely thread crochet jewelry. Here are some patterns to get the look DIY:

kits at Plain Mabel by Lindsey Streem Designs (just $6!)

tutorial for hoop earrings by Craftster member sumerlovin.

more hoop patterns at hook me up, including a cool ruffly one.

free pattern from JPF crochet club

You could use almost any doily motif with a tiny hook and thread.

Molly from Mommy Coddle wrote in to recommend a designer: Kristen Doran. Kristen makes bags, pounches and softies with fabric she designs herself. It’s gorgeous screen printed fabric, with natural images of plants, and some of my favorite colors from nature: brown, red, green and light blue.

http://www.kristendoran.com

It’s a great solution to a growing problem- fabric designers (like Amy Butler) are not allowing their fabrics to be used on objects to be sold. So while you can buy Amy Butler fabric, you can’t sell the bag you made from it. Thanks for the update from Kelly, who informs us that Amy Butler changed her policy in response from customers. That is great to hear! Best wishes to Amy and her company. :)

Kristen has a better solution: make your own fabric designs. Kristen shares photos of the process- screen printing, on her blog. It’s great to see work that looks so professional done on a small scale, makes it seem possible to do… I bet this will inspire others.

Looks like she’s a bit under the weather, I hope she feels better soon!
- Kristen Doran’s shop
- Kristen Doran’s blog

This book have been written by Dr. Carol Ventura,professor of art(Tennesse Tech University).

Tapestry crochet is similar to regular crochet, except that one or more yarns are carried while another is crocheted. The finished pieces look woven instead of crocheted.It was traditionally a man’s craft in Guatemala, today both men and women make shoulder bags.

*More Tapestry Crochet is an update version of Carol´s first book. It includes an expanded history chapter, 14 graphs, 20 projects, and a survey of several natural fibers.

More info and link to free patterns to tapestry crochet here.

Este libro ha sido escrito por la Dra. Carol Ventura, profesora de arte en la Universidad de Tennesse Tech.

La técnica de Tapestry Crochet es similar al crochet regular salvo que uno o más hilos son arrastrados mientras otros son “crocheteados”. La pieza terminada parece tejida en vez de a crochet. Curiosamente ésta técnica era realizada por hombres artesanos en Guatemala, pero actualmente ambos,hombres y mujeren, tejen de este modo, especialmente en los famosos bolsos de esta zona.

*More Tapestry Crochet es una versión actualizada del primer libro de Carol. Éste incluye un amplio capítulo de historia , 14 gráficos, gráficos de patrones en papel, 20 proyectos, y un repaso a las fibras naturales .

Más información y patrones gratis de esta técnica aquí.

This is just excellent. Get on over, signup. Don’t be afraid! Me *coughs*, well I’m still deciding. There’s even a freakin forum! Signups close 8 September.

This tutorial has been brought to you by Steph Hung of Curiously Crafty. With a compulsion for creative wonders, she has her hands in too many cookie jars…

Welcome to the wonderful world of journalling! I promise, if I can make one then you can too. The following instructions will make a journal that is 5 3/4″ x 4 1/2″.

(All of the pictures have also been posted at flickr.)

Materials:

• 60 - 70lb. paper (I use 20 sheets per journal)
• one sheet of white paper for the cover guide, cut to 5 3/4″ x 9 1/2″
• decorative paper for end papers (I used scrapbook paper. You will need 2 papers that measure 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ each)
• cardboard
  • covers are 5 3/4″ x 4 1/4″ each
  • spine is 5 3/4″ x (width of pages; to be discussed later)
• fabric (1/2″ wider than cover guide on all edges)
• pencil
• scissors
• glue
• wax paper
• clothespins/paperclips
• ruler
• sewing needle
• strong thread (you can buy bookmaking thread, or just use hand-quilting thread)
• bone folder (*optional)
• awl (*optional)

Instructions:

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Wardrobe surgery entries are closed. We are now looking through them all. To have your say leave a comment here.

Which entry was your favourite?
How are you going with the current whiplash schedule?

I don’t understand a lot of quilt competitions because often they seem to reward technique but not original thought. One of the big exceptions is Quilt National. The legend goes that this biennial, international quilt show began as an outlet for contemporary quilters whose work was not understood or appreciated by the traditional quilters who reigned supreme over the quilting competitions in the US.

Over the years I have had my frustrations with the quilts selected for Quilt National. Sometimes the quilts go in the opposite direction in the extreme–wildly sloppy craftsmanship, embellished to death amid a sea of overworked surface design. It’s as if the jurors were rewarding the pieces that most reject the functional quilt. But this year we have reason to be optimistic as two of the jurors have bodies of work that include exquisite examples of contemporary quilting.

This has to be the most competitive quilt competition anywhere, but I really think it’s a great opportunity to submit something, just to have a deadline and a new goal. The deadline is Sept 19.

I submitted a very meaningful quilt I made four years ago before I understood what the competition is about and I received the nicest rejection letter ever. The letter said something like almost everyone whose quilt was accepted that year got a rejection letter several times before that and that I should submit again. Bill submitted the above quilt and was also rejected. A month later Country Living Magazine filled an entire page with that quilt and four years later, it’s still one of our most popular quilts.

This year I’m going to try again. I will post some ideas about some origami box or something I will make out of my rejection letter. Hey, that could be the other competition–what creative thing can you make from your Quilt National rejection letter? I would love to have readers who submit entries to Quilt National post their entries here so we can celebrate everyone just being brave enough to enter. We’ll cheer on those who make it and those who don’t.

Recently all my spare time and brain space has been taken up with organising an exhibition. As an emerging artist without a gallery to represent me, I must book the space, market the event, pay for it all, cater the opening and make the work. Luckily a fellow artist friend is joining me for a joint exhibition, this makes the process both easier and more difficult, but it is definitely good for bouncing ideas and sharing the work load. I am exhibiting digital images printed on cotton paper and my friend Amanda is showing porcelain, both functional and non functional sculptural pieces. While our mediums are very different, they work well together within the context of our theme.

The process…
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