come on over & do the twist

Just a short update; I'm expanding my horizons & doing some guest blogging at Zickermans Värld, an online craft magazine named after Lilli Zickerman, one of the founders of the Swedish craft movement in the beginning of the 20th century. Today's contribution is a top five list of craftivist projects so even if you don't do Swedish, you can take a look at the links. Enjoy.

Hopefully it'll be a recurring thing so stay tuned to the site.

up the punx!

Since I like the combination of punk rock & cross stitch (see examples here, here & here) I thought that there must be others like me somewhere out there. So I went on the interwebz & searched for like minded stitchers, but they're harder to find than I thought.

Got a little bit frustrated, until I remembered that a while ago I found this reassuring piece from Whatever James:

As a bonus, here's another work of his that I really like.

I also tried my luck at Etsy, where I found Bombastitch who makes a lot of funny & cool x-stitch stuff. My favourite is the simple & elegant Black Flag logo (been thinking about stitching that one myself). Great work, great band.

PopSoupSupplies sells this multi-tasking Clash pattern, that works for "CROCHETING, KNITTING, CROSS STITCH, NEEDLEPOINT, BEADING AND MUCH MORE!". I love the frame, but I'm guessing it's not included in the price...

Another cross stitching punk genius is Lisa, who I met at Punk Illegal '07 where we discovered that we share a mutual love for Sju Svåra År. The quote on this pillow comes from the same song as this one.

Another favourite of mine is this one. The top hits on Google claims that Skitliv is a norwegian black/doom metal band formed by the former singer of Mayhem, but in my world it's a song by Skitsystem.

But I'm thinking that this can't be all there is? Leave a comment here or send an e-mail if you have any links to share.

EDIT: I forgot Confessions of a Crafter! Love this:

just trash, me & you/it's in everything we do

First: a hasty birthday gift for a friend, featuring his favorite quote from Tom Waits' Tango till they're sore. No, you don't get any close ups since I finished it while being absurdly hung over, which made the stitches not so neat...

Second: my friend Victor (who might actually be the smartest guy i know) is now a contributor at Everydaytrash, a blog about... well, trash. What is it? What do we do with it? How can we use/reuse all the stuff we throw away on a daily basis? & what happens to the trash that we do throw away? Check it out.

we were on a break

I feel that I have neglected you for a while & I'll try to do better. There's just been a lot of things going on in my life right now, so I haven't really had time for crafting (or maybe, my mind's been elsewhere). But I've started a new project, moving on from x-stitch to other type of embroidery & it's really fun. Hopefully it'll be finished soon.

But at least I've found a new (for me) craft site that sell some really cool patterns, both for hand embroidery & machine embroidery. Check out Urban Threads.

Here's some of my favorites:

Also, take a look at this awesome needlebook/pincushion/craftkit made with one of the patterns.