Craft Rock Friday with Lenka

This week's Craft Rock Friday is a 2-for-1, as Lenka has a bunch of crafty stuff goin' on in her music... Here are a couple of her videos that use collage, paper cutting, drawing and painting...

"The Show"




"Trouble is a Friend"

Lenka's album artwork also has a nice crafty style to it - as do her site and MySpace.

(Thanks for the link, Alexandra!)

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A Dash of Cuteness

This felt flower brooch looks oh so happy and summery. The petal structure of dahlias really is goregeous.

Check out the tutorial on Holidash to make your own. Looks like a little patience is required. And some decent glue (to aid with the patience thing).

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StudioShop: Open Studio Sale at the Mergatroid

I'm looking forward to the the open studio sale at the Mergatroid this weekend!

StudioShop
Saturday June 26th and Sunday June 27th
11 to 6pm 5pm

Mergatroid Building, 975 Vernon Drive, Vancouver

Featuring work by a collective of artists in the Mergatroid Building who include, Su Foster, Eikam, Laura McKibbon (Cul de Sac Design), HeyDay Design, Dahlhaus, Braden Hammond, Bronsino, and on Sunday only, Karin Jones.

UPDATE: A couple of revisions to the above info, thanks to Dahlhaus: "Our time for the studio shop will be from 11-5 (instead of 6). And unfortunately Braden Hammond won't be able to open his studio doors this weekend as he was planning on. The rest of us will be there so if you are in Vancouver, please do come by for a glass of wine and some nibblies while you shop in our studios."

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Loving the Wheel

I just finished a ten-week pottery course at my local community centre. I'll write more about it later, but for now I just wanted to say that I love it.

LOVE it.

I'm picking up a whole pile of glazed stuff, fresh from the kiln, on Saturday, but in the meantime, here are a couple of my bowls... Filled with a delicious snack of mangoes, yogurt, granola and honey. Mmm...

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Quilting on my Mind...

The inaugural meeting of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild was last night. It was a good event, with a lot of energy in the room. Not to mention a lot of people - I think the headcount was 43!

The show-and-tell portion of the meeting was really interesting - there were so many different quilts on display - all with different approaches, patterns and colour-stories - made by a range of quilters from veterans to total newbies. The crowd was super supportive and excited - I loved the communal 'oooohs' and 'aaaahs' when the quilts were held up!

It's definitely nudging me to start on one of the quilt ideas I've been thinking about in the past little while... I have 2 that are on the must-sew list - and after last night, I now have an idea for yet another quilting project...

Which reminds me: I never posted photos of the last quilt I made. I made this quilt just before my nephew was born... and he's about 15 months old now. Better late than never! :)

I wanted to use a palette of modified primary colours - something bright and fun - rather than whites or pastels often found in baby quilts. They have a chihuahua (Hello, Nacho!) so I knew I wanted to use this awesome puppy fabric. Love the teacup chihuahua detail!

UPDATE: Great photos from the meeting here and here!

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Craft Rock Friday with Breakbot

Get your funk on, it's Craft Rock Friday!

This fun, trippy, watercoloury video was created for the song, "Baby I'm Yours" by the French band Breakbot.



Directed and handmade by Irina Daveka at Wizz Studio, the video is composed of approximately 2,000 watercolors painting placed one after another.

A perfect  way to kick off summer.

(via Black Eiffel)

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Making a Quilt from Photos

Here's a fun project from the fabulous Victoria & Albert Museum in London.... V&A's Patchwork Pattern Maker.

Just upload a photo and the Patchwork Pattern Maker will create a custom quilt pattern for you! You can even use images from the V&A's collections, which is pretty awesome.

The results can end up quite abstract or detailed, depending on the image you choose, plus how many squares and colours you want to use. Check out the gallery to see what patterns people have already created - at least virtually. It would be interesting to see some of the finished, fabric results!


If you're looking for a comparable program to make knitting patterns from photos, have a look at MicroRevolt's KnitPro application for creating custom intarsia patterns for knitting.

(via the ReadyMade blog)

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