potholders and legwarmers

and my quest for life as pot holders

girl number twenty has made kids legwarmers

Karren over at Entwinements has been at it again with beautiful shibori tutorials. This time how to resist-dye butterflies in indigo.

Part 1 and part 2.

Very sweet little tutorial for a pincushion sewing kit over at Monkeyroom.

Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students (Design Briefs)

Written by Ellen Lupton, Published by Princeton Architectural Press.

As a print magazine designer, this book is of particular interest to me. However I also think that typography is important in areas not traditionally thought to relate to design or that need to worry about type, such as visual journalists, scrap bookers, collage artists, screen printers, fabric designers, zine writers, in fact anyone who incorporates words, text, type in their work, would benefit from this book. As Ellen says ‘thinking with type’ is about using ‘visual and verbal language to develop and deliver ideas’ she says it is ‘the bridge connecting written language to visual art.’

This book is a combination of critical essays and practical information. It is a compact, well organised and beautifully presented compendium filled with history, theory and practical ideas in a neat well designed easy to read and understand format. One thing this book is not however, is a compendium of fonts.

For designers using type frequently, I would think that this is an excellent addition to their (no doubt already large) typographic library collection, and for newbies this is a good beginning to the world of typography. With an interesting overview, extended informative resources and plenty of visual stimulus, it is a good instructional read. All the history and theory is accompanied by visual examples as well as an anatomy of the font - typography dissected if you will. Fascinating and essential reading for students of design and for others who use type as a tool without having formal design training.

Another aspect of this book of great interest to readers is the designing for web areas, how the use of typography can change / help how the website is read, a favourite bit for me were the little side snippets ‘type crimes’ - I am afraid I have committed a few of these…

Jan Andrea’s Baby Crafts is a fantastic source for baby sewing projects: carriers of all kinds including ring slings, pouches, mei tais, ring wraps and all their variations; nursing pillows, sleep sacks, crib sheets, diaper bags, and chair covers. There are also instructions for converting regular sewing patterns into maternity patterns and altering regular bras and T-shirts into nursing wear. Her own patterns are free and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. She also provides plenty of links to other people’s patterns around the web.

(both images from Jan Andrea’s Baby Crafts website)

The team at Handmade Detroit are running a contest for the best handmade Mother’s Day gift. The prize is a brand new silver iPod. Deadline to apply is May 14. All the details are here.

Seems like a simple enough task to choose a thread color for making a quilt. That is until you choose the wrong color and it becomes painfully complex to deal with. The navy thread looks like black next to the white. The orange thread peaks out between the pieces. The pale pink thread looks white next to the darker pinks. Here are some guidelines that we’ve developed over the years that may help.

For piecing, “Split the Difference and Blend.” Choose a thread that is halfway between the lightest and darkest fabrics in the quilt. If you have a multicolored quilt try a taupe or gray thread. Look for the most neutral color you can find and look at a single strand of it on the fabric. Remember that thread looks very different on the cone than it does as a strand. Bear in mind that fabric often looks darker once stitched so test a few on scraps before you commit to the whole thing.

For quilting, think about the role of the quilting. Should it contrast with the fabric to add visual interest? Would you prefer that it disappear because the piecing or fabric is visually complex? How about the backing? How will it look on the back? When machine quilting, some people advocate using different threads on the back and front. I think this works if they are pretty close in hue or value but I’ve had really bad results if they’re too different. It can look really messy as every little change in tension and be distracting. If you have big areas of a single color you can switch threads as well. Many of our quilts have long thin (less than an inch wide) elements in them of contrasting colors. I frequently leave these unquilted.

Consider also the difference in the fiber content of the thread and how the thread is going to lie on the fabric once quilted. Cotton threads tend to be thicker than polyester blends and make the quilting more obvious. In general I match the fiber content of the thread to the fabric I’m using, so I generally use cotton thread for all piecing and quilting. Sometimes, however, I just can’t find the right shade in cotton and I piece with polyester, but it’s not ideal.

Before you make your final thread choice, audition a thread color that you would never have thought would look good just to see what it would look like. About seven years ago someone rented our long-arm quilting machine to quilt a quilt with peacock blue and green fabrics. She chose a golden yellow that I would never have chosen, but it looked fantastic and totally transformed the quilt.

Lisa Congdon, Penelope Dullaghan and Ashley Goldberg have come together in an exhibition entitled {un}Limited at artstreamstudios in New Hampshire through July 11, 2007. The theme of the exhibition was rather open, yet the three women created work which speaks to one another’s in this group show. Lisa used black ink on vintage book and magazine pages filled with text. Ashley used vintage book pages too, as base layers for both drawings and paintings - and made new paper vintage-like by dyeing it with coffee. Penelope used text on a small badge in her painting of an elderly woman proclaiming “I’m in Love”.

There are birds, chairs, and intimate scenes where you are not sure what might happen next. The work is charming and in some cases disturbing at the same time. There are mostly originals, but also a few high quality prints in limited editions. Each artist has a strong sense of personal style and yet the show as a whole creates a mood which the singular works might not project.The use of mixed media in the works is exceptional by all the artists.

Some viewers have called the exhibition “girly” others “gritty” and yet others “whimsical”. This indicates to me that at least we have people thinking, which makes it all worthwhile. All the work is online and the gallery shots can be seen here at flickr.

cosies for coffee

poppytalk has a coffee cup cuff with tutorial

for the joy of it has a coffee pot cosy

This is a free pattern of one of my felt brooches. You can download here,print and cut the pictures… It´s very easy and funny. I hope you like it!!

Éste es el patrón de uno de mis broches de fieltro. Sólo tienes que bajarte la imagen aquí, imprimir y recortar los dibujos(que son los patrones). Es fácil y divertido,¡espero que os guste!

cosies for personal use:

tumbling blocks with a tissue box cosy

cosy for your pills from karma kitties

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

Reethi Jagannathan wrote:

I often see people participating in great swaps in blogland that I don’t hear about until too late. How does one find out about these swaps, anyway? Is there a central spot where all swaps are posted?

The galleries are up for Tie One On and the Pincushion Challenge.

Tie One On: theme was Rick-Rack, lots of good ones this time. May/June theme is pockets.

apron by Mantua Maker, I love how the rickrack is classy and graphic

Pincushion Challenge: theme was Eats, May/June theme is not posted yet

pincushion by doudou fille, I like how she took the classic strawberry pincushion and ran with it

gadget cosies:

wardi.dk has a cosy for an mp3 player

phone sock cosy from trilliums

camera cosy from fortytwo roads

A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words: Image-Driven Story Prompts and Excercises for Writers

Written by Phillip Sexton, photos by Tricia Bateman, Published by Writer’s Digest Books, Distributed in Australia through Capricorn Link.

Exercises and prompts to encourage creativity.

This is a book for writers, those whose creativity is expressed in words, those whose craft is the craft of writing, its creativity prompts, however, are useful for anybody wishing to expand the creative side of their brain, even if your thing is making, drawing, or gardening. Being inspired by one thing can lead in so many different directions. Which is why I would encourage anybody who has a creative bent to examine other areas where their creativity might be expressed. Be inspired by different mediums, try attending contemporary art exhibitions, poetry readings, folk music sessions or knitting clubs … or why not give writing a go. [I was telling my Husband about this idea of trying new areas of creativity to give a creative prompt, and he thought it sounded like Edward de Bono's provocative operator technique, where by forcing your brain to go down different pathways you can solve problems and make new discoveries, lateral thinking shifting of thinking patterns away from entrenched or predictable thinking to new or unexpected ideas.]

This book is a good place to start, to hone or practice your writing skills. It is about finding ideas, getting inspired and starting something. The reason I think that this particular writing prompt book is relevant to us crafty types and makers is its visual quality. The writing prompts are actually images and we are visual people. The concept is to start with an intriguing black and white image, such as an image of an abandoned tricycle on a footpath, or a man sitting in a waiting room with his head in his hands, a couple just about to kiss, the woman with a strange look on her face, or someone gazing longingly into an old photograph. The images fall into categories to prompt writing about different genres like horror, love and suspense or honing skills like character descriptions or emotional responses. There are images that evoke sorrow or hilarity or fear, others that contain tragedy or hope. The various prompts and images encourages the would be writer to expand and push their creative boundaries.

Bottle cosies

felted bottle cosy from felting in fiberspace

and knitted bottle cosy from girl on the rocks

Yesterday I got the loveliest little book featuring the work of Julie Arkell, a British mixed media artist who creates these funny, humorous and sort of naïve dolls, creatures and objects out of humble materials such as papier-mâché, fabric, yarn and haberdashery.

The book also offers you glimpses of Julie Arkell´s studio where she - as an inveterate collector of discarded toys, textiles and ephemera - works with stuff that’s worn, torn, used and read. And as you can probably guess - her shelves are a wonderful mixture of storage and display a great source of inspiration!

Living in the American Southeast? Hankering for some handmade?

Get on up to Raleigh tomorrow for some fabulous things, talented creations and amazingly friendly crafters!

From 11am-5pm. Be there or be square!

40 talented artists, designers, and crafters will showcase their handcrafted goods at The Handmade Market this Saturday, May 5th from 11am - 5pm at Vintage 21 (209 Oberlin Road, Raleigh NC).

Visit the website for directions, a list of participating designers, and other important information: Handmade Market. Once you experience the handcrafted goodness and guilt-free shopping at The Handmade Market, we think you’ll agree that “mall” is a four-letter word!

poppalina has posted a pattern for her crochet baby quilt - to all those who requested it - here it is

Christine from Paper and cloth is running a “decorate your bra” contest.

I came up with the idea as I’m walking in a 26 mile walk for breast cancer in May called the London MoonWalk where participants wear decorated bras whilst they’re walking through the night.