In Brightest Day

Hello from a.

This is a washcloth that I made for r. He is a man that enjoys comic books, so I went with a symbol from one of the more enduring characters (Green Lantern). Because my colourwork is still so-so I did a white circle and then a bunch of slipstitch strips that I sewed in place and then backed with a slightly larger green circle (this has the added benefit of making the cloth nice and thick). All this is in the good old lily cotton. If I had been more ambitious I would have added the number 2814 to the green side, but that seemed a little much (as in a little nerdy).

"True art is unable not to be revolutionary, not to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society"

Hey brothers, sisters, comrades and comradettes! r. here:
I felt that the above quotation from everyone's favourite Trotskyist (remember Trotskyite:Trotskyist::Trekkie:Trekker), Leon Trotsky ("Manifesto: Towards a Free Revolutionary Art) was an appropriate title for this posting. This is the first in what I'm projecting as a series of paintings of my cat, Boom Boom Geoffrion, in the style of socialist propaganda posters--the ubiquitous image of Che Guevara that adorns a good 45% of college dorm room walls, my own back then included, is the principal inspiration--paired with various revolutionary slogans. For this painting I went with the "Join, Or Die" from a Ben Franklin political cartoon (feel free to suggest your favourite slogan for future paintings). The painting itself is 9"x12" Acrylics on Canvas. When I paint I use stencils for the images--kind of a graffiti/Andy Warhol thing or Magritte crisp without the illustrative abilities?--so this is a stencil made from a black and white photo of Boom Boom (if you want to try it at home, most desktop publishing software can produce a workable image for stencilling) that I then hand cut for the single use along with a separate stencil for the legend. A will no doubt be expressing out mutual love for freezer paper/wax paper for craft stuff and I will say that it makes phenomenal stencils and is far, far cheaper than tracing paper, but try not to get the organic stuff because it feels a little funny. Anyways, here it is: "Boom Boom Revolution #1"

bunch of fabric projects

Hello from a.,

I have a bunch of fabric based projects to show you in this post. This scarf is two sided, the one being this super cute fabric and the other side is a rich green polar fleece. I did a couple of cutouts in the polar fleece in order to be able to see a couple of the animals poking through. Of course I finish a fleece project when the weather temperature starts to rise.





This is a message/posting board that I made for above my sewing machine. r. had played with a canvas that was, well, made of fail. However since we are people of very little money, I reclaimed it for a project of my own. I used spray adhesive (my new favourite thing) to place down two layers of batting, and then covered that with fabric. The corners have ribbon to hold things in place, and I sewed a couple buttons through to add depth and places to hang stuff.




















The final two items are softies/animals made from patterns from the book Softies Only A Mother Could Love. The one on the left is an owl, that I made slightly smaller than the recommended size, because I intend to use him as a pin cushion (I had previously made a small sewing basket out of the tummy patterned fabric, so it works nicely as a set). The animal on the right is a really simple cat, made out of this nifty monkey fabric that I only had a little bit of. And that is our cat, b.b. (that isn't his actual name, it is just that here at craft ninjas, we tend to use short forms), facing off with the monkey cat.

enjoy.

Hello from a.,

This is a hat I made for r. in the last week. It is from two balls of wool ease chunky. r. has a rather big head (in part due to his mad scientist hair), so while one ball of chunky would often be enough, I did the flip brim in an alternate colour to stretch the yarn out. It is in a half-double crochet rib, and the key thing is that being chunky, it is a crazy warm hat, good for those zero and below nights (though of course the hat was finished when the weather hits at 32 degrees).

We don't do the Yudu that they do so well

this is r. folks:
One of a's current hobbies is complaining about the Yudu and, in particular, the Yudu infomercial. For those of you who haven't seen it, the Yudu is a $200-300 machine that supposedly makes screen printing easy and accessible to everyone. It's from the makers of the Crickit and proposes that if you wanted to screenprint without a Yudu it would cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of roughly $1500 with a lightbox alone costing yada yada yada (the last time I needed a lightbox to do anything I just used my laptop's screen, but I wouldn't recommend it). This is, of course, ridiculous, but, then, in the infomercial, they show a professional rig that I'm sure was custom built and would be stupid to have in your home. Anyway, I thought I would show everyone my rig which I put together for about $80. I bought the Speedball Screen Printing Tool Kit from Utrecht Art Supplies for $37 along with some ink. The tool kit includes all the basics including a screen, squeegee, chemicals, instructions and an applicator brush. This is pretty much all you need to get started, well, except substrate, pallet knives (god, how I love pallet knives), masking tape and a surface to work on. Indecently, my press surface is an IKEA hack: a piece of an oddly shaped bookcase we weren't using that I plan on tarting up in the near future. That's it... no wild costs or professional set up here (though I am trying to learn the proper way of annotating prints) because that wouldn't be punk rock. Oh, the project you see me working on is a bit of fabric for a project bag a was making. It features a logo I designed for her stitch n bitch group, the Freaky Little Bitches.

Hello from a.
I thought that I'd start with a picture of my crafting area, so that you can get an idea of where I put together things. Living in academic destitution, I have had to claim a corner of the bedroom (in a 1 bdrm apartment). From left to right we have a basic brother sewing machine, which has been decorated with a ninja sticker, beside it is my sewing shelf with a bin for notions, and below is my fabric. Next is the t.v. and dvd machine (I tend to watch musicals while crafting), on the ground is my yarn swift and winder. Next to that is the yarn box, which is pretty much full. While my crocheting can go anywhere, i tend to sit on that expanse of floor, picking out yarn, or cutting fabric. There is a shelf in a closet that has the iron, cutting mat, batting and fiber fill, but you don't need to see the inside of the linen closet.