Lenny’s nature boats are so gorgeous … He calls them pooh sticks - he beach combs for bits of wood, feather or anything else that appeals and has a loose set of rules for each construction eg. he might only build the boat out of stuff that is within reach when sitting down, or he might restrict the use of tools (usually a penknife).
from laughing purple goldfish: For months I have been collecting plastic bags and cutting them into strips. Supermarket bags, bread bags, fruit and vegetable bags. Collecting and cutting. Collecting and cutting. Then I spun two strands together, and plied those with another two strands I had spun together. I ended up with two balls of plastic yarn. Much less than I would have anticipated. A little disappointing, but an interesting experiment all the same.
The natural art and environmental art pools on flickr are a treasure trove of inspiration.
flower squiggle from piperkinsvater flickr user
leaf circle from JRT Pickle flickr user
grass skirt from crows_in_trees flickr user.
to contribute an article, link or story on ephemeral art email whipup (at) gmail.com
pop your links to your ephemeral crafting adventures here in this forum thread - I hope to feature lots of projects for may. [oops sorry link was incorrect - fixed now]
Like this felt and string outdoor wallhanging by flickr user lulu bird
These smiley face poppy seed heads
and these egg pot plants
Yesterday was earth day April 22. Skye from Crafting a green world sent in fun and informative post titled ‘Top 5 Ways Your Fabric Stash Can Save The Earth‘.
If you are into eco crafting you might also like to check out sew green | worsted witch | Abigail Doan | inhabitat what are you doing on earth day | nature moms blog | treehugger posts [streets are for the people] and [earth day - the new christmas] | this is my lab |
Eco Colour: Botanical dyes for beautiful textiles by India Flint, Available from Artisan Books
India Flint is a works with textiles and natural dyes to create objects of beauty, with Eco Colour providing a tome for others with an aim of providing the least harm to the dyer, the end user of the object, and the environment.
This is an excellent book - it gets you thinking about the options that we have for producing and consuming textiles without synthetic and often highly dangerous materials.
While native plants to Australia feature, her advice could work anywhere in the world. She’s given instructions as to how to dye in any country with what you have, and provides examples of the dyeing traditions that occur, such as dyeing with soy in Japan. Eco Colour covers dyeing sources, health, safety and equipment, preparing, processing and applying dyes along with traditional and more unusual methods of dyeing such as slow cold dyeing fabric by composting, and dyeing cloth with frozen flowers.
Methods used might be cringe inducing for some - people use bleach on their clothing without a second thought, however using stored urine to assist with dyeing or screenprinting with animal manure could be drawing the line. There’s a wonderful underlying delight in the chance chaos that might happen using the processes - you’re dealing with nature here, and there’s no guarantees. Unlike many dyeing books, there’s projects here which are kid friendly, and gives us all the opportunity to learn more about how we can use the resources around us.
The book has been stunningly and thoughtfully designed with environmentally friendly materials, which over time you may well be gifting to a friend as a coffee table book, complete with your experiments with coffee grounds dyeing the pages.
About the reviewer: Kylie Gusset resides in Australia and is passionate about knitting, handcraft and eco crafting issues.
More: India Flint invites dyers working with Australian indigenous plants to participate in a new national investigative dye project. Rather than one person working in isolation, nibbling away at the metaphorical iceberg; it is hoped this project will embrace the work of many participants. Working with a uniform recording method and data sample sheet and using digital reproduction methods it should be possible to collate a wealth of information for future publication. Samples will be uploaded to Tincturia Australis Blog.
recycled carpet square samples turned into this innovative hall rug [link flickr user idaho studios] [via craftzine & apartment therapy]
The Institute For Figurings Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. Coral and sea creatures made by women from all around the world.
The Institute For Figuring is crocheting a coral reef: a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.
Helle Jorgensen is contributing crochet coral reef sections as well as her rubbish vortex which she has crocheted entirely from plastic bags [see below a picture of it installed at her home - still in construction + picture of her crochet coral]
Also participating is In the Loop - a knitting and crocheting club based at the World Financial Center. In the Loop is working on an addition to the reef. The picture is of Barbara Hillery Van Elsen from Playing with string, Barbara represented the NYC Crochet Guild (www.nyccrochetguild.org), which did the bulk of the work on the NY Reef.
Inga Hamilton is contributing plastic jellyfish and coral reef forms [see images of her plastic rubbish confection like anemones and urchins]
Helen Bernasconi [from the crochet cactus garden - crocheted pseudosphere embellished with mathematically precisely spaced hyperbolic curlicues - via Margaret Wertheim's Flickr]
cactus flowers by Sarah Simons - these are made from mercerized cottons mixed together in various hues.
plastic crochet forms made by Evelyn Hardin. These forms are made from glow-in-the-dark craft lace, and light up with a delicate phosophorescent glow at night. - Part of the Toxic Reef - a hybrid conglomeration made from yarn and plastic garbage. The purpose of this reef is to draw attention to the growing problem of plastic trash that is pouring into the world’s oceans and devastating marine eco-systems.
exhibitions schedule:
New York University “Broadway Windows” (NYC, NY) In conjunction with the New York Institute of the Humanities and the Steinhardt School at NYU, a selection of the IFF’s most complex and delicate sub-reefs will be on exhibition in the Broadway Windows space. The exhibition will include the Bleached Reef, the Branched Anemone Garden, and the Ladies Silurian Reef.
When: April 5th - May 18th 2008 Location: Broadway Windows, at the corner of Broadway and 10th St.
World Financial Center, Winter Garden (Battery Park City, NYC) A second exhibition of IFF crochet corals will be staged at the World Financial Center, Winter Garden. On display here will be the IFF’s yarn-and-plastic-extravaganza, the Toxic Reef. The Winter Garden show will mark the debut appearance of the Rubbish Vortex crocheted entirely from used plastic shopping bags by IFF Australian contributor Helle Jorgensen, and The Other Crochet Reef by the mysterious Dr Axt. On display will also be a large cloud of plastic jellyfish forms by Irish contributor Inga Hamilton, Cambrian Explosion forms by Aviva Alter, hyperbolic octopii by Helen Bernasconi, and beaded hyperbolic marvels by Rebecca Peapples and Sue Von Ohlsen. The WFC show will also debut the New York Reef, currently under construction, and will see the New York premier of the Chicago Reef.
When: April 5th - May 18th 2008 Location: World Financial Center Winter Garden (beside staircase) 220 Vesey Street, New York, NY 10281
The spanish crafters Eloole have designed and produced a suit of the planet for Intermon Oxfam´s campaign “Hasta los Polos“. They try to remove consciences about the climatic change, armed conflicts and the immigration. The handmade suit have a structure of foam and details as the chimneys, skulls, weapons, small boats in felt and cottons fabrics.
Los artesanos españoles Eloole han diseñado y producido un traje del planeta para la campaña “Hasta los Polos” de Intermon Oxfam. Tratan así de remover conciencias sobre el cambio climático, los conflictos armados o la inmigración. Este traje está totalmente hecho a mano, con una base de espuma recupierta por pequeños detalles en fieltro(barcos, calaveras, chimeneas, armas…) y telas de algodón.
Part of our toys and games month here at whipup - check out these wonderful toys made from recycled wool.
plump WOOLeY BUNNY - made from my old sweater stash felted down - small stone from lake michigan for lovie thoughts inside his belly stuffed with wooly scraps-and then stitched up -
mushroom forest scene- sculpture recycled felted waldorf toy - taken from old felted sweaters and adding some knitting and sculpted felt for rocks.
Woolly Blue Bird - He was stitched completely by hand with embroidery floss. His body is made from felted wool.
you have heard of sock monkeys and sock monsters, now the sock camera - brought to you by Neta of bobolina: dolls stories. LOVE this.
Natural Dyes (Textiles Handbooks)
This in an interesting technical guide to natural dyeing. Lots of information in one place - with extensive info on mordants and dyestuffs as well as some information on the process, materials and health and safety. The bonus is that the second half of the book has sample boards of the different dyestuffs used on various materials and used with different mordants.
My only complaint (well two really) I am not exactly sure about the accuracy of the colours, some pages seem to dark or dull or else overly bright - and as this is a book giving examples of what various plant dyes look like this is a bit of a downer. Another annoying thing - is what appears to be a design fault with a printing error at the top of every page.
Note cards made with just one simple punch. - After the frustration of shopping and the seemly high price of each component I needed to make a few note cards, I challenged myself to make cards using common things I had, a black pen, glue stick, a hole punch and flower shape punch and gathering things I usually throw away, junk mail and sample paint chips.
I started with a simple design. Using junk mail to punch out flower shapes. It is surprising what a cute flower chicken nuggets can make.
crochet from plastic shopping bags - I love the colours used here - really nice version of this type of bag - by the knit nurse
fabric car trash bag at allyson Hill [via craft]
gooseflesh has made these see creatures from plastic bags
via whispering pine - gorgeous colourful bag by drikab
pattern for the Charlie re-usable shopping bag at burda style[via bits and bobbins]
home made soccer ball made from old plastic bags [seen on treehugger]
making bags from sheets at wisdom of the moon [via craftzine]
canvas extra pocket by etsy seller callieco
During New York Fashion Week, 28 top designers dazzled New York with cutting edge eco-friendly fashions on the runway. Renewable, reusable, non-polluting fabrics such as organic cotton and wool, bamboo, corn-based fibers, recycled fibers and biopolymers were transformed into everything from elegant couture to street wear. [from earth pledge]
Abigail Doan attended the event - she says:
The show’s tagline, ‘It’s not about this season - It’s about every season’, is an indication of where we might be headed in terms of our outlook on style, attitudes towards dressing, and our intimate relationship with the planet that we harvest our clothing’s fibers from.
[image of hemp fibre from Abigail Doan left and eco spun (made from from recycled soda bottles) from Etsy labs right]
It’s still pretty cold out here. I had this idea in the fall, and it has served us well over the winter so far. Being fundamentally a lazy person whose knitting is marginal but loves felt and likes to keep her hands toasty, this is the best, fastest, and pretty economical way for me to whip up a pair of mittens.
Find a felted sweater (or felt one yourself). The ones that are the best for mittens probably started their lives as big mens’ sweaters. What you’re looking for is a wrist cuff that fits comfortably and snug around your wrist after it has been felted. Put your hand in the wrong way in to see that it fits and that there’s enough wiggle room for your fingers. I’m using a felted alpaca sweater (sooooo soft!). Also very important: find a small helper to complete important tasks such as measuring the fabric and other random objects in the house.
Place your hand on the sweater and trace around just the top with some tailor’s chalk. This way the sides of the mittens will already be done because you are using the existing seam and side. Then cut out, about 1/2″ from your trace line.
Using a straight stitch and loose tension (and a walking foot if you’ve got one), make a seam, following just on the outside of your trace line. Then turn the mitten inside out and test for comfort. You can see that I made an adjustment for around my thumb.
Trim. No need to finish the edge! Make sure to round out the thumb to avoid getting a pointy-thumb :-) Turn inside out and ta-da! Embellish, if you wish. If you don’t, the whole project will probably take you all of ten minutes!
It’s also useful to make one pair that is really soft for a liner and make a slightly larger pair out of more dense wool felt for the outside. Then they’re extra warm even on a windy day and they dry faster after outside fun.
[Note: They're also perfect for drinking hot chocolate whilst contemplating the still very much dormant garden]
About the author: Marnie is always interested in creative, beautiful, economical and sustainable ways to fill everyday needs. Marnie is a crafter working from her home. her favourite medium is fulled wool sweaters, her favourite assistant is her beautiful daughter Safiya, and her favourite topics are sustainable living and anything having to do with good food. You can find her writing on craft, mothering, figuring things out, and her attempts to live a more sustainable life in urban Toronto at her blog: girl number twenty.
As part of our alt craft month, we will be posting links to cool ideas and inspiration as well as tutorials and articles. We are still taking tutorial and article ideas for the month so please email your ideas and stories to me at whipup[at]gmail.com.
Green kitchen has a tutorial for this kids sweater apron [and amy karol has a half cocktail apron style one from the recycled sweater]
The Natural Knitter: How to Choose, Use, and Knit Natural Fibers from Alpaca to Yak
For yarn lovers. A book devoted to natural fibres - wool and other animal fibres, silk, plant fibres and plant dyes. This book explains what the terms ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ really mean.
This book is filled with luscious images of yarn in all its manifestations - yarn lovers will drool over this book. The main important aspect of this book is the explanation of the various yarns, from good old wool, to camel, Alpaca and Angora, then followed by a few patterns/projects using each particular yarn - the projects are simple and stylish - lots of lovely sweaters, as well as some toys and children’s outfits. I particularly liked the meditation rug and the angora infant sweater.
It is a very readable book, I enjoyed not only reading about the yarns, but also about various yarn makers - small artisans, business owners and farmers who either produce the fibre in its raw state, who take the raw fibres and turn it into yarn and also those who use natural dyes to produce art yarns. Towards the back of the book there is a small section on spinning and dyeing fibres so you can give it a go yourself, however this is not primarily a how-to book, rather a combination of patterns, how-to’s, stories and descriptions of fibre. An excellent book if you are into using alternative and organic yarns - timeless - highly recommend.
Barbara Albright died in 2006 at age 51 from a brain tumor, leaving behind her husband and two children.
As part of our alt craft month, we will be posting links to cool ideas and inspiration as well as tutorials and articles. We are still taking tutorial and article ideas for the month so please email your ideas and stories to me at whipup[at]gmail.com.
Kristy of craftastica sent in this link to how she made this patchwork bag from fused / recycled plastic shopping bags.
