Hillary Clinton wincing, excerpt from Laughing Stock (2006), cotton, thread. 13″ x 13″.

Artist Christa Maiwald, in addition to her work in other media, creates fantastic embroidered portraits of celebrities and everyday people.

Present Tense (2004). Cotton, thread. 52″ x 66″.

Maiwald’s embroidery pieces, hand sewn on cotton and linen handkerchiefs, are executed with a richly detailed elegance reminiscent of early Christian mosaics, but the delicacy of technique and materials is offset by images that are funny, mysterious, crude - at times all three. — from absolutearts.com

(images used with permission of the artist)

Pre-Colombian Chancay Doll

Some of the pieces, particularly the older ones, on this site are fragments. But still, to be able to look at textiles so old, and wonder at their history, and to be inspired by their designs…

19th century Palestinian shirt

Images from left to right:

1. Stille - A soft electronic wearable neck piece … As the neck rolls around, the wearer can hear the private sounds of
crickets, and potentially the relieving sounds of distant rain.

2. In_Step - Sensory foot bandages and holdable tactile feedback device

3. hipDisk - Polypropylene, rivets, tape, lycra, metal, elecrtronic components, wadding, cotton braid, conductive fabrics and conductive threads - Inspired by the movement of the body when swimming laps, this piece uses conductive fabric as the contacts to activate the chromatic notes of the scale of ‘”C” as a physical performance of bending and swaying of hips and body creates a spectacle of the most ridiculous music.

Over 3 intensive weeks at the Australian Network for Art and Technology’s (ANAT) reSkin media lab series, 7 international and local facilitators and 20 specially selected artists and designers were busy indoors stitching the worlds of textile and technology together, with some fun and interesting results.

By no means a simple sewing circle, reSkin saw artists and facilitators research, develop and rapid-prototype sensor, time based and reactive clothing.

This collaborative project is a joint venture between ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology) , the Australian National University School of Art, the Centre for New Media Arts (CNMA) and Craft Australia.

We have been working behind the scenes to bring some new features to whipup. In the side bar is a news section, in this area will be posted the occasional whipup news item as well as craft events and craft related news. I hope you will check out the sidebar often to see what is happening. If you are reading this via a news feed then the side bar items will show up in the feed as usual.

Also we have added a contact us form which makes contacting us much easier. So please send in your thoughts, tips and ideas.

Of course we have the contest pages - whiplash and the design a banner competition, which I am hoping lots of people will enter as there are some really fantastic prizes.

Thank you all for reading

(more…)

I enjoy the funny juxtaposition of wearing the body, on the body. Barbie has become the accessory instead of being accessorized. I take pleasure in the contrast and contradiction of something mass-produced being transformed and revealed as a unique, handmade, wearable piece of art.

Margaux Lange

I found Margaux’s work online a while ago - and was delighted to come across her new and updated website the other day. What I especially like about her work is it’s sense of playfulness, it’s ingenuity. I love that Margaux is using something iconic and turning it on its head…adding to and exploring the cult of Barbie, issues of recycling and adornment. I also really enjoyed seeing an insight into her process {and a peek into her work environment - as a jeweller myself, this is always interesting!} via her blog…

I have always personally loved Barbies, having played with them all the time as a child - making my own clothes and hats for them, giving them hair-cuts {eek}…and so found it really interesting at art school when they were discussed in such depth during lectures and debates for their design status.

Many people now see Barbie as a bad role-model for girls - but this was something I absolutely did not identify with, and do not subscribe to the idea that this iconic doll influences young childrens ideal of the perfect woman {I never wanted to look like Barbie}. I see her as an excellent outlet for creativity and roleplay…something essential in a childs development.

I am so glad, as an adult, to see these positive notions continuing - in such a wonderful and beautifully executed way - through Margaux’s jewellery.

I can’t wait to see the collection evolve!

Melissa of All Buttoned Up presents this great tutorial for a fabric box perfectly sized to store your trims.

The kids and I tried our hand at shibori t-shirt dyeing on the weekend. Inspired by Otilija’s school and a new book Shibori: A beginner’s guide to creating color and texture on fabric by Lynne Caldwell.

We looked through the book and found a few techniques that we thought were do-able for 4-6yr olds and that the kids liked the look of. We tried three different techniques mentioned in the book. Tieing marbles or other objects with rubber bands, wrapping with string and folding and clamping. We were all really impressed by the results and had a lot of fun doing it too. I purchased basic white t-shirts and singlets from Target and some blue fabric dye and got started.

This book is really great there were a couple of things about it I especially liked. Firstly there are lots of fabric samples of finished techniques and a description of how they achieved those results and the clear step by step instructions on some of the techniques was really helpful and well documented. The colour photographs are also extremely gorgeous and very inspiring.

So onto our weekend project.

With this shirt we used a combination of tieing foam balls around the neckline and folding and clamping the bottom and the sleeves.

On the singlet we used buttons around the base and the on the back and we did a string sausage on the front similar to Orlando’s shirt below

With Orlando’s shirt we found the centre and pulled it out then tied string around and around on the front and the back. We also used buttons tied with rubber bands on the sleeves.

Some online Shibori resources:

Shibori girl blog - lots of great images of work in progress, experimentation and finished shibori fabric : spirit cloth has been experimenting with Shibori with some beautiful results : entwinements has a lot of shibori design and a great tutorial on capped shibori technique :

The Eye of the Artist: The Work of Devorah Sperber, Brooklyn Museum, January 26- May 6, 2007

Using ordinary spools of thread, Sperber creates pixilated, inverted images of masterpieces, which appear as colorful abstractions to the naked eye. When viewed with optical devices, however, the works becomes immediately recognizable as the famous paintings. The thread spools works are hung upside down in reference to the fact that the lens of the eye projects an inverted image of the world onto the retina, which is corrected by the brain.

Detail view: After The Mona Lisa 1, 2005 (from Devorah Sperber website)

Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting, Museum of Arts & Design, NY, January 25 - June 17, 2007

A provocative and timely exhibition of work by international artists using fiber in unexpected and unorthodox ways. … Radical reformers in the world of knitting and lace making have overthrown the status quo from the inside out. In the space of ten years, knitting has emerged from the “loving hands at home” hobbyist’s den into museums and galleries worldwide. … The artists in this exhibition are experimenting with forms and techniques in the most novel and surprising ways, exploring new relationships between structure, design, color, and patte

Althea Merback (United States), Gloves, 2005; Wire-knitted silk, Kathleen Savage Browning Miniatures Collection, Kentucky Gateway Museum Center

[Thank you to Stacey and Marilyn for the tips]

Whiptips craft advice column for readers to ask questions or offer advice by leaving comments. Whiptips archive here. Questions to whiptips@gmail.com.

Lucy from My Byrd House has a question about making soft toys:

I have started making them at home and am looking for good tips and information on stuffing and turning them. I am looking for what is best to stuff them with and tools for stuffing and turning.

Designing your own style quilt can be a daunting prospect - thinking of fabric and colour choice, the mood you want to create, where it will be used and how much time you have to spend on it are all important considerations. (You might want to pick up a copy of the latest American quilting mag - see previous post - and find out what Weeks and Bill Ringle from Fun Quilts has to say about it).

I really enjoy free piecing my quilts within simple guidelines, and have a lot of fun with colours. I decided recently to make a queen size quilt, and wanted one fast, my design parameters were:

1. using up fabric that I already had - I didn’t want go and buy anything I wanted to do it right now and knew that shopping would use up my urge to create - also I have lots of fabric, the stash is getting out of hand.
2. something unisex - ie. not too girly - my husband needs to live with it too
3. warm earthy colours - I rummaged through my fabrics and found everything that was chocolaty and warm red and tan, with some olive green, pink and orange thrown in too.
4. simple pattern that didn’t involve precision cutting and sewing - I really love Denyse Schmidt style and decided to try my hand at something similar to her string theory quilts. For the back, after advice from Weeks Ringle, I decided to go with using up scraps in a fun way and came up with something bright and bold and modern.
5. help from my 6 year old in putting colours together - she was really keen to help and once I cut all the pieces up I gave her the job of matching them up in pairs and handing them to me to sew. She was so excited and set up a little work space and really took it all very seriously.

Work in progress on the quilt top - to give you an idea of the colours and fabric used.

Work in progress on the back of the quilt

I really enjoy seeing others design processes:

Kim outlines her patchwork pillow design : Jane is always whipping up beautiful colourful quilt creations love the latest explosion of colour : Juju is taking up quilting and is spending time investigating the process and has really thought through her criteria for a quilt : Jude is creating a flowing feeling with her quilt :

What is your quilt criteria? do you have a design process?

Winners announced… what a fabulous lot of entries. I loved the winner and runners up - see them here [via craftzine].

Some very cool entries that I really liked were: (click on the image to see the full entry)

One entrant will be given the opportunity to sell their products through Reform School store in LA. and their products will be featured on the stores website.

The requirements are:

1. you would have to be willing to either have your products in the store on consignment or sell them at a wholesale rate (to be negotiated with the store.)

2. You would need to be able to produce your product in sufficient numbers (approx 10) each one not necessarily being exactly the same - individuality and uniqueness when using recycled products is part of the charm.

3. You will need to say in the post of your entry if you would like to be considered for this prize.

About the store - ReForm School located at 4014 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, Ca 90029, USA, sell products that fuse sustainable design with contemporary crafts.

Owners Billie & Tootie share a passion for all things green & handmade and feel the two design disciplines work perfectly together. They support independent artists, especially those who are re-using creatively.

I once heard an editor of a cooking magazine say that she was always debating in her mind whether her magazine should reflect the taste of their readership or lead it. It’s no secret that the image on the front of a magazine dramatically affects the sales of the magazine, so it was with nervous excitement that we waited to see the response to the latest issue of American Patchwork & Quilting.

On the cover of the just-released April issue is Spice Market, a contemporary quilt designed and made by us with our latest line of fabric. There is also a 5-page article on FunQuilts, which is the nicest piece anyone has ever written about us in the magazine. There are also beautiful pictures of our studio. When this came out last week, we wondered how APQ’s readership would respond. By putting a modern quilt on the cover of a magazine with a traditional base readership, was APQ reflecting its readership or leading it? Would it attract any new readers?

APQ listed our phone number and website so readers could purchase the fabrics used to make the Spice Market quilt. This is especially helpful to readers because it is so hard to track down all 13 fabrics used in the quilt, especially if you are making a large quilt and need lots of yardage from the same bolt.

So far daily traffic to our website has tripled and the phone is ringing constantly. The big surprise is that the demographics of the callers is so different from what we expected. We’re getting calls from octogenarians and bloggers, wives whose husbands especially like the quilt, moms who are making the quilt for their college-bound children and young, beginning quilters who are attracted to the simple construction. In the US we’ve received calls from Washington State to Florida, with both urban and rural post office box mailing addresses. We also have received calls from Canada. Our website statistics show us that there are times when groups of people all from the same server are on our website at the same time. We envision co-workers on a break looking at our website.

What we’ve learned this week is that the divisions between traditional quilters and contemporary quilters aren’t as clear-cut as we thought.

Finally, the editors of American Patchwork & Quilting have agreed to let me interview them about their magazine, what’s new in quilting and any other questions whipup’s readers would like to submit. They really want to know what interests you, so post your questions here, I’ll forward as many as I can, and get you some answers.

Lea at The Needle in a Haystack is hosting this mystery Crochet Along for a simple graph potholder - each day she will post step by step instructions and at the end of a week, if you have followed along, you will have a cute cotton potholder with a heart motif.

Carrie from thread & thimble sent in a link to this story of bunch of feisty nuns on the run after their knitting business was mired in debt. Apparently most of the debt came from their trips to Paris fashion shows, so they could keep up with the latest fashions when designing their knitted items to sell to the locals.

Love Tags by Lisa McGarvey

This idea would work for a whole bunch of seasons and reasons, not just Valentine’s Day. It’s inspired by English collage artist, Sarah Lugg, who does wondrous things with tags. The Creating Garden at TwoPeasinaBucket has section devoted to Make & Takes, of which this is one. Step by step photos and instructions are provided.

Love card trio by Jackie Bonette

And this is another.

Projects like these can be great ways to use up offcuts, whether paper, textile or whatever, and like ATCs offer small canvases for experimenting with ideas and techniques. They offer scope for crafting with children, too.

Carafe, Rudolf Bott - Neuburg an der Donau, 2002
Silver Carafe, hammered and raised..

“COLLECT- The international art fair for contemporary objects. Presented by the British Crafts Council…41 galleries will present work by over 350 leading artists covering ceramics, glass, jewellery, silver and fine metalwork, textiles, wood and furniture…”

Each year, Collect - held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and presented by the Crafts Council - causes a huge stir amongst the Art and Craft community and is praised as one of the best Craft events in the calendar year…it is running from the 8th - 12th of February {2007} and will be well worth attending if you are in the capital this month.

Events such as this are always great as the age old question of ‘What is Craft?’ gets a renewed airing in the public arena…this was a topic that sparked lots of interest the last time I posted about it and I was also very interested to read the take on the subject by so many leading industry proffessionals as well, detailed here …

You can view a small selection of the work that will be exhibited at Collect by clicking here…

I am loving the new “In the Kitchen” line from Alexander Henry Fabrics. In stock at eQuilter and Purl Patchwork (both ship worldwide). I just wish that Alexander Henry kept their website more up to date so we could see this and other new collections!

What an excellent idea “The Softie Awards”….get creating people. Great range of categories and judges!

The Softie Awards are open to softie-makers/designers worldwide. All entries must be original designs and handmade by the entrant. PHOTOS OF SOFTIES ARE REQUIRED FOR ENTRY, YOU DO NOT NEED TO SEND THE ACTUAL TOY.

For the purposes of this contest, a ’softie’ is defined as a handmade plush toy that is stuffed. Softies may be sewn, knitted, or crocheted, and can be any size. Please note, there are a couple categories that do not require something stuffed, ie the Best Cozy and Best Functional categories are slightly different.

You must be 18 years or older to enter, or you must obtain the consent of a parent or guardian. The Softie Awards participants must consent to the use of his or her name and photo of their softie on the Softies Central/The Softie Awards web site and in any and all media.

Deadlines: All entries must be posted to the flickr group, The Softie Awards by March 9th, 2007.

Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

Hmmm I see a cozy in my future….