Stitchify - Crafts and Fiber Arts Inspiration

One of the first exercises in the Creative License is to draw the contents of your medicine cabinet, looking at your drawing as rarely as possible, and picking up your pen as rarely as possible. My drawing isn’t anywhere near perfect, but I love it anyway. And it was really fun! The not-looking at the drawing part is really challenging. You can look only 10% of the time that you draw. You can go back later to fill in the fine details. Click the picture to see what the real cabinet looks like.

I’m reading a book called Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to be the Artist You Truly Are, by Danny Gregory. It’s pretty much blowing my mind. It cuts through the hegemony of - art is worthless, you can’t support yourself by making art, so it’s not worth your time. It talks about how that thought has stifled the artist in all of us. It prevents people who don’t think they have any artistic ability from believing that they can be creative at all, and prevents others from nurturing their creativity. The book is not just all talk though. It has some fun tips and exercises for shaking off the BS “rules” that supposedly apply to everyone in our society (but don’t) and for getting your gears turning. It’s only $10 at Amazon, and well worth it.

Awesome tool alert!

I seriously lack confidence when it comes to handmade baby gifts. I’m always afraid that I’m going to make something too big or too small. Lucky me - I stumbled upon this great chart. It lists measurements for baby clothes and hats, and also measurements for adult clothes and hats too. Now if only it listed babies’ foot length for booties…

Art Bra was really fun. Friday night they had an artists’ reception, the day before the big opening.

I’m glad the organizers set it up that way, because Saturday was a zoo!

Andy and I had our niece with us, who is visiting from Arizona. We met up with Aunt Susan and Great Aunt Bettie. Here’s a picture of us on Friday night. 4 generations of aunts and nieces.

Here’s Aunt Bettie in front of her “Winter Bra.”

Here’s one of the pieces that Susan donated, “Pretty in Pink.”

Here are Daisy and me in front of my “Busty Bustier.”

I hope that I get a few bids on my piece. All proceeds will benefit the Sac Food Bank and a local breast cancer support group. My friend Dennis placed a $30 opening bid, which was super sweet of him. He wants to use the Busty Bustier as a beer coozie. Ha!

The show is open until Saturday, so stop by if you get a chance. There are some really great pieces there.

Sacramento’s wonderful Second Saturday Art Walk is this weekend, and I’m going to have a piece shown by one of the most popular galleries in town, 20th Street. My mind is totally spazzed with excitement. This group show is comprised of donated art on the theme, “Art Bra.” Proceeds will benefit the Sacramento Food Bank’s Women’s Wisdom Project and the Albie Aware Breast Cancer Foundation which supports local women fighting breast cancer.The Second Saturday reception and silent auction is this Saturday, June 14 from 6-9 pm, at 20th Street Gallery at 919 20th Street (I’ll be there from around 6-7). I would be SO excited if you would come out to say hello!

If you can’t make the reception and would like to drop by later, the Art Bra show will be on display June 10-21st. 20th Street will be open from 12-5pm, closed Sunday and Monday.

My Aunt Susan and my Great Aunt Bettie will also be in the show. Susan’s a fabulous photographer, and Aunt Bettie is a talented artist of multiple mediums and has knitted a gorgeous “winter bra” with rhinestones sewn all over it.

I have donated my miniature crocheted freestanding bustier for the show. I have posted a free crochet pattern for the bra cups. Come on by the show and say hello! *Julie*

hey dudes! man here. i, too, am totally honored to have been asked to do a few guest posts this month here at stichify! i almost fell out of my chair, i was so flattered to have been asked. and then, after i gathered myself back up, i realized, oh, yeah, i don’t do ANY type of stitching, or knitting, or crocheting, sewing any of those fun fiber arts. i am a paper girl. that is definitely my medium of choice. painting on it, stamping and embossing on it, cutting it, gluing it, stapling it, folding it, whatever. i guess every once in a blue moon i’ve been known to throw a quick stitch on paper, but my god, it’s a rough looking stitch.

i have been hanging out at craftster.org and stumbled across a totally rad photo tutorial by girlypirate about making a folder out of an old record album cover. since i love making stationery and notebooks and paper treasures AND i love the earth, i thought this was an awesome way to recycle something found into something useful.

all you need are some basic crafting tools, a badass record sleeve, and a legal pad.

and voila! tres bon. click here to see the tutorial.

in my quest to make pretty things, sometimes it’s nice to have a friendly reminder to be gentle to this earth so that others can enjoy it long after we are gone.

{just don’t go cutting up your parents’ album covers, kids. that doesn’t exactly count if it doesn’t belong to you in the first place.}

oh, and be kind, rewind.

While I (Renee) was in school we had an assignment where we had to bring three website addresses to class that were good sources of inspiration. This is one of the sites that I showed the class. It makes for a fun project on a rainy day and a good craft for the kiddies… I have no kiddies just kitties so 100FACE and I did this on Easter! You can find out more about Cutnejo HERE and the template HERE. There is also a Flickr group where you can post your finished toys. I think it is so awesome how different everyones toys look and the crazy environments they put their odd toys in! The cutnejo pictured below is the one I made. Mine is in a rather boring situation! This is a really great interactive project to do on those dull days and best of all, it’s free!

Hey Stitchify readers! I’m honored to have been invited to do a few guest posts this month. Let me tell you a little something about something. I stumbled across an article on a crew called Knitta Please a few years ago in a knitting magazine. It was a short write up that left you hanging and the group was still very much a mystery. I came across another article this past month in another magazine (I’d love to name it but I can’t, I’m a magazine junkie so there are just too many possible reads it could have been in) which inspired me to do a bit of online research about this group of knitters… it goes something like this. Knitta Please began in 2005 with a group of frustrated knitters who had a bunch of unfinished projects lying around. I know I have them, tucked away in corners, in baskets under bookcases and in the backs of closets but I would have never dreamed of creating a group that tagged the streets with knit graffiti. They hit the streets of the cities around the world with chapters in Stockholm, Houston, New York to name a few. Their goal is to make your average street sign, bus stop, parking meter look like art. Are you ready, get your needles out and round up a crew.. you’re gonna need a look out!