miss gioia has made a tutorial for a cute stuffed patchwork cube

check out the winners of the softie awards. ::via craftzine ::softie awards

Your work must be of an original design in the needlearts areas of knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, needlepoint, or embroidery. Each needlearts category will have winners in the Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Levels. The contest entries are open from April 4 though May 31, 2007. ::stitch & pitch contest info

Since first seeing Anya Kivarkis’ jewellery a few years ago, I have been keeping an eye on her work…and am delighted to be seeing it popping up all over the net!!

…Having graduated with a BFA in Craft [Jewelry/Metalsmithing] from the University of Illinois and an MFA in Metal from the State University of New York, it is not suprising Anya’s collection of work is so beautiful and well considered. I love her visual language…the construction and deconstruction of shape and form and the play of the real against the surreal. Being a lover of history, I adore the glimpses of Victoriana seen in her pieces, through referencing doilies and lace…chadeliers and shadows. The partial hiding and simplification of form that she achives through dipping the work in resin {although it looks like glass enamel} really serves to give the work a highly modern edge. I really enjoy her colour palette of icy, juicy blues, stark whites {through the resin and blanched silver} and the burnt looking black edges…

Having recently won the prestigious ‘Emerging Artist’ award from Sienna Gallery it really does go to show what a bright light Anya Kivarkis will be from now on in the jewellery world. I am very much looking forward to seeing more work from her soon…..!!

Anya Kivarkis’ website seems to be down at the moment, but be sure to bookmark it for visiting in the future.

Kids are great - they always provide you with a lot of new information and contacts. So thanks to my daughters I know another woman with very special knitting ideas. (This time we have kids in the same music school.)

May I introduce: Marianne Joergensen, a gifted Danish artist who often uses her surroundings as a starting point for her art. In her work she connects events from the public or political stage with her individual and private life using techniques as sewing, knitting, gardening etc.

Last year she organized a major knitting project. Volunteers from many European countries and USA contributed nearly 4000 pink knitted and crochet squares. Outside Nikolaj, Contemporary Art Centre in Copenhagen, a small group of people sewed it all together and covered a tank with this piece of pink patchwork – as a critical statement on Denmark taking part in the Iraq war.

Knitting and crochet is as far away from war thinking as one can possibly imagine. These traditional female crafts signals quite other values such as home, care, proximity and time for reflection… whereas political involvement seems to be a quite overwhelming affair: where to start and where to end? However, most people can knit or crochet a square of 15×15 centimetres - and so a lot of people managed to state their opinion on war - by crafting!

Finally, the process of stitching the squares together over the top of the WW1 tank was documented with a video that was later shown at the exhibition TIME at Nicolaj.
Next Tuesday 10.th April at 20-22 it will be shown at Aarhus-filmvaerksted together with other videos documenting Marianne´s works. Afterwards there’ll be a discussion - where you can meet Marianne in person - if you should happen to drop by…