let the last storm hit us / let it strike at the hardest part / turn us all to mutiny / turn this boat upside down

Just a little thing that I made today for my friend Lisa.

There's another version of this at Rachel Mckay's & I'm pretty sure that Rayna's got one too, I just can't find it on the site right now.

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:

every day another conflict / I take it one day at a time and do the things I need to do

Since I fucked up my leg & had to start getting around on crutches, I've had to carry all my stuff in an old ugly backpack that I don't really like. So to make it a bit more punk & personal, I stitched a Naked Aggression patch for it. If you want to make your own patch, I'll post the pattern in the DIY archive.

& I also got a late birthday gift today, well worth the wait. It's a handmade notebook with my name ingraved in gold. It's so beautiful that I almost cried when I got it.

strong I am with the force, but not that strong

This is my friend Linnéa, taking her first steps into the magical world of radical cross stitching. We had a craft session at my place yesterday, complete with soup, cookies and the most postmodern moment ever - when I accidently spoiled the end of Jane Eyre to Linnéa by mentioning The mad woman in the attic.

I'm so proud of my new protégé! My plan is to become her Yoda of cross stitching. She will worship me & my skillz and maybe bring me offerings in the form of cookies &/or DMC embroidery floss. Moahaha! (<- trademark Mad Scientist laugh)

Yes, the patter that she's stitching comes from the DIY page of Radical Cross Stitch, but for swedish readers it might also be known from this ever so lovely compilation of songs from the women's rights movement of the 70's:

It sounds something like this:

we must stand unbroken, unbound & unashamed (this is what democracy looks like)

Design stolen from some left-wing poster I found on the internet & a quote from Johannes Anyuru, one of my favourite poets.

It's from a radio show he did this summer, where he talked about how his early poems from the late 90's were filled with a burning furious now. It was a time when we actually thought that another world was possible, that things not only could, but would change. I sort of feel like I need to be reminded of that feeling sometimes.

museums are dead take a new art stance

I haven't really been feeling like crafting/stitching these last couple of weeks, but going through the pattern map on my laptop, I found this one that I think some of you might like. It gets to join the other patterns on the DIY or DIE! page.

When stitched, it looks something like this:

In times like these, it feels good to listen to someone singing that hospital closure kills more than car bombs ever will.

Manic Street Preachers - New Art Riot

life becoming a landslide

I'm back in Stockholm again, to see my mother who's visiting from Mozambique & also celebrate the first birthday of Alma, my niece. The original plan was just a quick weekend visit, but now I'm staying until Thursday (so if any friends read this, feel free to give me a call if you want to hang out this week).

The thing is that I managed to break my left leg after just one week in Gothenburg, when the brakes on my bike stopped working & I had to put my feet down to stop. Result: a tibia fracture where the bone got sort of crushed against the knee, the surgeon's description was "try visualizing it like a mortar". I spent one week at the hospital, the leg/knee needed to be operated on & now I'm on crutches until the end of October. The last couple of weeks I've been laying on my couch, popping morphine pills & eating candy, which migh sound great but I promise you, it isn't. I can't even begin to describe how much this sucks.

& like that wasn't enough, the suck-fest continued with the result of the general elections in Sweden last week; four more years of conservative right-wing government & a populist, racist party with it's roots in the neo-nazi movement got 20 seats in parliament.

Because of the pain & the pills & the general lack of enthusiasm I haven't had any energy or strength to do any stitching. I'm just feeling sorry for myself right now & because of that I'm thinking about buying this awsome and fantastic lamp. I think I deserve it.