Lovely reversible tapestry crochet basket!! Amazing work from Carol Ventura (again!). You can see the pattern here-go to pag 12-.(Via Chuculeta).

Cestita reversible realizada con la técnica denominada “tapestry crochet”. La página de Carol Ventura, de la que ya hablé, se va a ctualizando y ofreciendo nuevos patrones como éste.(Vía Chuculeta)

A few months ago I posted about this years Jerwood Applied Arts Prize…which is showcasing jewellery this time round. The Crafts Council’s mini-site has now been updated with images of the six makers {Adam Paxon, Susan Cross, Grainne Morton, Mah Rana, Nora Fok and Yoko Izawa} new work and short biographies…

images above - Adam Paxon, Grainne Morton and Nora Fok…

You can check out the rest of the images by clicking here….

ps..Happy New Year to you all :)

A craft warning from Lavender:

Hi,
I thought I would try a few of the hand warmers from the Martha Stewart’s Handmade Gifts magazine. They seem really quick and simple to do and would make a few for stocking stuffers. It’s the one you make them with wool and fill with ceramic pie weights. The instructions provided in the article says to microwave on high for no more than 5 minutes. Well, it’s a good thing that I tried it out first. I set the microwave on 4 minutes and now my house smells like burning wool. At 3 minutes & 38 seconds, I began to smell the burning wool. By the time I got the microwave door opened, there was a scorch mark on the wool and spreading. Because I used 100% wool, it didn’t catch on fire. I thought you might want to warn people making these to test them out first before giving them away. I don’t know if there’s any difference in the brand of pie weights.

Antonia from Maisonette sent in this link to Marcel Wanders crochet furniture

Amy from the hive design sent in this link to the toymaker

Hey Whipuppers! I follow your site and am a fellow blogger (although I’m still a rookie). I’m sending you a link to a site your readers may be interested in. This site, by Marilyn Scott-Waters, catalogs a variety of images, templates and paper patterns (downloadable as pdfs) for creating a variety of paper toys. Marilyn’s illustrations are wonderful and clever. This site is fun and FREE!

Melissa {aka the crazy cat lady} sent in a tutorial link on making garlands

And this letter from Stephanie {aka Heesl} from mundane super hero

Y’all wrote about vellum as a medium not long ago and I wanted to link you to one of my favorite author/illustrators. Mr. Hillenbrand illustrated my very young son’s favorite book, Down by the Station, using vellum, among other things. I found his website this week and am blown away by his art process link and I think your
artsy readers would love to see it, too!

I am about to campaign to have Mr. Hillenbrand visit my daughter’s school. Cross your fingers for me!

Stephanie (who loves whipup)

How gorgeous are these things and pefect to make use of all those spare socks you have lying around - tutorial at super sock monkey

Not a craft blog exactly, but a blog of inspiration and fun. Andrea of Hula seventy is a crafty chic, with a great eye for design, she is vibrant and fun and I love reading her blog.

In an earnest effort to further hone my procrastination skills, I took to photocopying photobooth strips. obviously so that I could make the subjects look like circus clown slash drag queens. … this little habit first appeared in my college days– when hours of heavy reading and many, many research papers were required of me. but this doodling, it was so much more fun. and such a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

How exciting it was to see Whipup listed as one of the favorite websites of the staff of the Chicago Tribune’s Home & Garden section.

Kathreen, hope you could hear the shout-out all the way down there in Australia!

Techniques and patterns for creating elegant designs

by Luce Smits

Published by Sterling Publishing

The introduction calls this ‘the must have knitting guide’, for beginners it is essential to aquire new skills, and for experienced knitters it is the perfect tool and companion. I tend to agree and I will explain how good this book really is.

This book begins with a brief history of knitting and an explanation of the materials and tools required. Then a rather extensive section on basic techniques. A note on photographic illustrations and instructions - these are not clear enough for absolute gumby beginners, but excellent for anyone who already has a basic understanding and wants to build up their skills. This first section explains selvedges, binding off, knitting in the round and picking up dropped stitches as well as casting on, and more. Excellent photos of the swatch of the finished stitch and techniques (such as the various selvedges), its good to know what it is really supposed to look like.

The main section is the stitches, these are broken up into chapters with patterns utilising the stitches. The patterns are well written and easy to follow with instructions including the weight of yarn and needle size, the stitch to use and the gauge swatch dimensions. Note: there is no particular brand of yarn mentioned which I found quite refreshing. The first chapter is Garter and stockinette, (I quite liked the baby booties with a squarish toe and square opening in garter stitch). The next chapter covers the variations on these two basic stitches, eg seed and moss stitch, (there was a really nice toddler jacket in seed stitch).

The next chapters include ribbed, cable and aran stitches. Which all begin with techniques, principals and instructions and excellent photographic illustrations of the stitch in action and a finished swatch. (I loved the dandy wrist muffs in reverse stockinette and tree-of-life stitch.) The next chapter covers coloured knitting, which includes stripes, chevrons, jacquards, and intarsia. The book finishes up with a chapter on finishing touches such as edges, collars, and armholes (I think the section on pockets is going to come in really handy and the various buttonholes had my mother drooling). And then at the back there is an excellent visual index of stitches, techniques and table of projects, which I think really sets this book apart.

The projects in the book are fairly basic, utilising the various stitches rather than showcasing an intricately designed piece of clothing. I wasn’t that keen on the various sweaters/jumpers on offer, they nearly all had box sleeves and seemed quite unflattering. The way they are photographed doesn’t help as they are sort of artistically rumpled, which makes it difficult to see the shape of the finished product properly. However there are some lovely scarves and baby clothes and mens jumpers, and one soft and shapely longer line sweater. I think the point of this book is not really as a pattern book, so really the actual patterns don’t really matter (ie. don’t buy it with an expectation of glorious patterns), but rather it is a source book of basics, a good base to learn from.

Kim at Dioramarama has a great tutorial for making a grocery bag dispenser. What a pretty way to hide those messy bags!

Make a very cool needlepoint nintendo case from this tutorial at craftster