misc.

Yet to be categorized.

Craftivism Hits the Miss California Beauty Pageant!

| Betsy

The subject line of this post is something I never even dreamed I would ever type, but, YES!, it’s true!

 

(Text from article, click text or photo to see the whole article!)

 

 

Miss Yoshino Rosalia Jasso, age 17, has been chosen as a State Finalist in the National American Miss California Pageant to be held August 7, 2011, at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel in Anaheim, California. The National American Miss pageants are held for girls ages 4-18, and have five different age divisions, and are one of the best things to do in Long Beach if you’re on vacation with your family there at the time. Yoshino Rosalia will be participating in the Teen age division and will be modeling for the Formal Wear competition, a “first-ever” gown designed by her that includes an over-skirt created with plastic bags. ….

Miss Yoshino Rosalia Jasso is the Resident Artist of The Long Beach Depot For Creative ReUse and serves as the primary Instructor of the Creative Reuse Workshops. Miss Jasso received her High School Proficiency Diploma at age 16 and has been attending Long Beach City College, majoring in Business. She enjoys creative reuse art, reading, writing, equal rights activism and craftivism.

While I don’t know much about beauty pageants, I do know that they can offer lots of opportunities for scholarships, which is a great thing! GO YOSHINO!!!!

Craftivism, ftw!

QR-3D: Can Textile Versions of QR Codes Work?

| Betsy

One of the greatest things about being involved in the world of craft is the people you meet. Over the years, I’ve come to befriend two very talented crafters and thinkers, Sally Fort and Inga Hamilton, aka Rockpool Candy*. A few months ago, Sally got the idea that some project needed to be done… and invited Inga and I to brainstorm on just what this project was. After about a bazillion awesome emails where we traded thoughts and inspirations and ideas back and forth, we kept asking ourselves questions surrounding QR codes and textiles, mainly:

Can they (QR codes) be functional and direct people to places on the internet?

How can QR codes be created in textile form?

How can designers, crafters, makers, tinkerers, artists, coders and interested dabblers use textile QR codes to send viewers to interesting places?

How can an internationally and digitally collaborative project share ways of working and increase opportunities for exposure and networking?

And thus, QR-3D was born.

And asks for YOUR participation should you be obliged to join in this project with us! Some amazing codes have already been sent in, which you can see over here and here, over at the QR-3D pool at Flickr.

*Be sure to go read the Rockpool Candy post on how she made her QR code using codes from her and her husband, combining them to be a “matrimony code,” the end result being the headboard for their bed!! Holy heck it’s awesome.



P.S. Recently I asked to participate in an Artist Series over at Unconsumption. You can see my project here, where I used a Radical Cross Stitch tutorial on how to cross stitch on clothes to cross stitch Unconsumption’s logo Mr. Cart on to a t-shirt using a chart made by Cat Mazza’s knitPro!



Kevin Bacon crafts by Kevin Bacon. Plus the Banjo Dinosaur Knitting Adventure!!

| Betsy

This bizarre ad clip of Kevin Bacon acting the part of “Ivan Cobenk,” obsessed Kevin Bacon fan is noteworthy because there are Kevin Bacon crafts. Kevin Bacon cross stitch, need I say more?





Also incredibly cool, check out this amazing project by Travis Goodspeed, Arjan Scherpenisse and Fabienne Serriere called Multithreaded Banjo Dinosaur Knitting Adventure 2D Extreme!!! First of all, every word in the title is awesome… AND then it goes on to say it’s “A Bayeux tapestry* for 2010!” Coolest. Project. Ever.

By extending the work of Steven Conklin, Limor Fried, and Becky Stern, we were able to hack a Brother KH930 knitting machine to print high score panes from a custom video game in yarn.


Go read more about the project here and Travis’ blog post on this project here.



In case you didn’t click up above, go check out Limor Fried’s project Electro-knit!

Do it now.


*For those still scratching their heads wondering what the heck the Bayeux Tapestry is go look over here. Also interesting, the Bayeux Tapestry museum and Bayeux tapestry: Propaganda on Cloth. Not to outdone by the French, you can learn more about “Britain’s Bayeux Tapestry,” a Victorian replica of the tapestry, here.

Just Whose Craft Is It?

| Betsy

A few slides from my talk in Oslo the other week.

I’m putting them here, because the first slide, to me, is the crux of what craft’s all about. It’s a dividing line of sorts, that makes people argue if craft is this, or if craft is that.

Is craft more populist? Or is it about honed skill?


I vote for the people.


The bottom two slides are a quote and a photo from the Wise Fool Puppet Intervention.






If you happened to be at the talk or just are curious about what aspects of punk and DIY started my interest in DIY craft, it mainly came from Riot Grrrl.

These two videos were ones I was going to show the students, but wasn’t able to. Both clips from the documentary Don’t Need You: The Herstory of Riot GRRRL.

1. Don’t Need You trailer
2. documentary clip



To me, that’s what’s craft is all about. Raw emotion, raw creativity, raw issues transformed into something heartfelt, beautiful and, yes, of the people.

Singing. Creativity. Healing. Joy.

| Betsy

Sometimes you just need to sing. Especially songs you love. And I’m currently in love with this song. Its cheeriness reminds me of what the heart of creativity really is. Joy. Even if it’s using some not so pretty emotions, it’s gettin’ ’em out to the surface, which is, indeed, joy.

It took me a long time to learn that lesson. That healing is its own kind of joy, maybe not as fun to experience as actual ecstatic singing-outloud-and-petting-puppies-and-eating-ice-cream joy, but still, joy. The best part? As you keep going, keep making, the closer you get to singing, puppies and ice cream. Sometimes it’s a slow boat, but it’s a slow boat to healing, not hell. And I like that.

I also like singing and puppies and ice cream. One day I’ll be sitting in the sunshine doing all three at the same time. It will be awesome. You should join me.






Thank you, Allo Darlin’!

Super extra crafty bonus points for the kickass decoupage job on the cover.

The more observant of you may notice, “Hey, what’s up with this frequent posting?” Well, it’s pretty amazing what a little structure of 9-5 can do… Along with finally being able to sleep due to less financial worry. I had forgotten that sleep generally means sleeping consecutive hours, not random bits and bobs. Crazy, innit?