Okay, if you crochet please check out monstercrochet.com and tell me what you think. I think…I think it’s pretty neat. Definitely strange, but beguiling none the less. Things like patterns for severed fingers and a scarf crocheted to look like bones sound a little high school goth, but the stuffed jellyfish and the turkey tote bag with matching drumstick coin purse? Now that’s just clever. Plus, they have free patterns. Oh snap!
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I am a t-shirt abuser. Sure, pair a fun t-shirt with a funky skirt and maybe a scarf and you have a solid outfit. Or, if you’re just kicking around the house, a t-shirt and jeans make a respectable lounging around uniform. But me, if I had my way I’d wear a t-shirt every day. Two, really, one for the day and one to bed. Threadless t-Shirts are, frankly, not helping my problem. Threadless is a graphic artist fun house, where hundreds of people submit design concepts for t-shirts. The designs are shown for the general public to view and score and which ever shirts have the highest scores get made into t-shirts. This results in prize money for the designers and awesomely unique gear for you and me. They even have a 12 month club where they will send you a new awesome t-shirt for every month of the year. My dream come true! Here are some of my favorites, from left to right: La Gran Reunion by Matheus Lopes Castro; The Helium Menagerie by Eric Fan; Skip Dessert by Jennifer V. Raad; Relative Speed by Riannon Delanoy; Afternoon Delight by Chris Bishop; Robin Redbreast by Chelsea Conboy; H20′s Sacrifice by Ryan Lin; Adorable Disaster by Andy Gonsalves; (I have a lot of favorites!)
Urban Craft Uprising, that is. One of the biggest indie craft organizations on the west coast, UCU is in its third year of rocking Seattles knitted socks off. If you are in the area, start counting the days down to their big show, December 1st and 2nd. And, if you are a vendor or someone interested in selling your own wares, check the website often. They frequently have workshops to help independent crafts businesses, such as the one coming up Oct. 20th. P.S. I think the design of their website is awesome.
If you craft, then there’s probably one woman in your life with whom you have an extremely complicated relationship: she’s someone you love to hate and hate to love. No, not your mother. Instead she’s the mother of all modern diy, Martha Stewart. Some of us try to pretend that we have escaped the influence of her far reaching shadow, but notmartha.org stands tall and proud, recognizing the Queen’s influence, but refusing to succumb to it. Like many of our other favorite sites, Not Martha has a bevy of neat-o tutorials, a jaunty attitude, and good photos. Plus, Not Martha is run by blogger Megan. Who doesn’t love a Meg(h)an? Jealous people, that’s who.
I bet you just loooooove craft tutorials, don’t you? Well, don’t feel weird about it, we all do. Myself included. And that is why I want to share this site with you. Creative Kismet is by blogger Regina and like many craft blogs out there, it is a fun portal into her crafty life. As many of my favorite blogs do, Creative Kismet includes beautifully arranged pictures, inventive ideas (check out some of her crafts below) and a little peek into Regina’s day to day life. What makes this blog different from many of the rest is the HUGE list of tutorials she has collected. Everything from recipes and clothing revamps to door draft stoppers. Seriously, she has an awesome catalog of projects and I will almost certainly be spending the next few weeks sifting through them and seeing which ones make it on to my own personal bookmarks.
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You’ll notice this blog has only been tagged “inspiration” because that’s what kinetic sculpture Theo Jansen is, truly inspirational and the crawling creatures of his mind are nothing short of shocking. And I get frustrated when I bead necklaces! Just imagine how long this must have taken him. If you want to search for more copies of this video (this was the best quality I could find) you can start searching “Modern Day DaVinci.”
P.S. I’m having some technical difficulty embedding the video, so here’s the link until I figure it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ceM2gWp5C0
Except at Chez Plum, that is. Check out this super cute, super sweet Isabeau Purse and then high tail it over to the website to get your free pattern.
Poopscape is a fun blog by Claire Chauvin that, despite the name, has nothing to do with actual poop (sorry to disappoint the freaks out there). It is, however, an on going narration by Claire about her life which includes, yup you guessed it, crafts. First of all, this lady cracks me up. Second of all, her projects are slightly skewered. Apparently her claim to fame is her sock skeleton that was featured on HGTV’s That’s Clever! and it is pretty cool, but my personal favorite is her “Big Brother Mobile” (pictured below). The idea is a cool blend of post-modern morbidity, and the story that goes along with it made me laugh out loud. So take a gander or two. She’s also got great taste in music and movies, so I’ve already have some new media to check out. Good times!
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The “It” is providing fantastic style, in this instance. If you’re the kind of person that drools of beautiful fabric, especially ones with razzmatazz patterns, then you’ve no doubt heard of Amy Butler and her fabulous line. Well, besides keeping us elbow deep in awesome threads, Amy’s site also provides free patterns for some stylish creations, such as the hour glass pattern below. Sure, it might be a marketing tactic created so that you say to yourself, “By God, I need to buy that fabric,” but Hell, there was a pretty good chance you were going to think that anyway.
Not to be confused with a yule log, craftlog.org is another wonderful craft blog by a mysterious, unnamed crafter and her seemingly ever present friend, Beckett. They do a little of everything: sewing, cross stitch/embroidery, jewelry making, etc. and they do it well. Plus, they have some pretty innovative ideas and directions on how to make a lot of their projects. Double plus, they’ve been at it for over four years now, so if you’re trying to kill some time at work, there’s a whole lotta archives you get to have fun with. Personal favorites at this time include this spirograph embroidery and patchwork pillow.
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