I am becoming increasingly fascinated with the art of cross stitch. It started when Dianne – the boyfriend’s mum – showed me her cross stitching of an old fashioned ‘lady’ – it was the work of 15 years she said. It felt like a tapestry, and you could tell how much work had gone in to the detailing. it got me thinking of how I’d like to do some cross stitching, but instead of doing twee old fashioned depiction i.e.
(though i do like the butterflies)
I’d like to do something more shocking, kinda like this, but better, and a little less icky.
I mean I like these, but they’re so predictable.
These however are certainly not the sort of thing you imagine when someone says ‘cross stitch.’ I can’t remember where i found them, but they are rather amazing, non? i could not believe they’d been sewn at first, but if you look at the second image, it’s clearer.
I guess that really, cross stitch is just an early hand rendered version of pixel art!
Yes a new Studio Ghibi movie is out!
I am a self confessed Ghibli fan and have visited the Ghibli museum in Japan! For all you Ghibli virgins out there, it’s basically the japanese version of Disney, except much much better quality. Anyway, i went to see it last night at the showroom cinemas, feeling totally justified in taking time out of sketchbook work as, technically it’s ‘research’
after all it’s all about the ocean!
Here’s a look at a trailer
I loved ponyo and her ’sisters,’ and i can honestly say that i had to fight to stop myself from squealing at the cuteness of the whole thing – though ponyo’s voice got a little irritating toward the end (no surprise there – miley cyrus’ little sister plays the character for the english dubbed ponyo..)
There was a small part in the beginning, which i’d thought i’d mention as it pertains the brief, where ponyo is swept up by a trawler and caught in a glass jar, unable to get out. The sea is refereed to as ‘ruined’ and we can see there is just rubbish all along the sea bed, no plants or coral.
boy does my back ache – i’m transported back to my A-level class room, where i’m sitting at a beringer sewing machine (Miss Peck’s boyfriends gift to her on her birthday – why the hell she trusted me with the £700 pound machine i have no idea) throughout break time, lunch time and lesson time sewing like nobodies business.
I had forgotten just how much it hurts to be hunched up and concentrating so hard on a tiny needle. *sigh*
I am a thief!
As many of my fellow handmade students are aware, i have an early morning cleaning job at the Sheffield University Union, what they do not know is that i have started raiding the bins in the offices (Rights of Advice and the SSID), hoping to find used envelopes with stamps and postal marks on! some of the letters have lovely foreign stamps an post marks on them (alot of the mail they get is from international students about visa’s and such), so i’m building up quite a collection!
I thought i might use them somehow for the new brief, but some of them are so pretty i loath to stick them into my sketchbook, instead i have cut them into butterfly shapes and plan to put them in a deep frame. Saw the idea in living etc, which, yes i am sad enough to buy on occasion!
We watched the screening for the end of the line today, it was as dramatic as the trailer promised, and superbly choreographed and i enjoyed it – mostly. I enjoyed the fact that it was so well put together, but enjoyed less the information I learnt.
I couldn’t believe how little i had known about it, and what i saw really riled me, and fired me up about the brief in a big way. Some of the imagery used was really shocking, i mean, you don’t really imagine fish as animals, but as i watched a fisherman hacking into a giant tuna (i consider myself rather well informed about where my food comes from, but i hadn’t realised how BIG a tuna was!) i saw the rivers of red blood and it made me feel sick to watch the great beast flailing uselessly on the deck.
The things that shocked me most were the sheer technology these hugh vessels had, most owned by mitsubishi, who according to the film were buying up hugh amounts of tuna to freeze – presumably to sell at an unnecessarily high price once they were extinct. It sounded like they were actively encouraging the overfishing of this species, purely for their own greedy material gain. The sheer wastage of the fishing industry also made me furious, seeing a man throw back dead fish and turtles (the ‘by-catch’) felt hideously wasteful and unnecessary, and hearing that boats caught 100 tons of wild small fish to produce enough fish meal for 10 tons of farmed salmon is silly, why not just eat the small fish? alot of them go into pet food to, which is stupid.
Enough ranting, needless to say i came away enlightened!
I found Miss Greer (sculptor and mixed media installation artist) whilst searching for info on Handmade Nation – she blogged about meeting Faith Levine and being at the NY screening of said film. She’s a big fan of the whole shabang, “viva the hand!” says she.
Very ocean-esq – i really love her creations.
I really want to learn to crochet too, my boyfriends mum has an amazing book filled with patterns for lovely crochet garments, i’m hoping she might teach me, so i can start becoming all self sufficient, and stop wasting money on clothes. (Which is a stupid idea, because i spent £60 on wool or ‘yarn’ at john lewis today, though choosing the colours and styles was the most fun i’ve had all week!)
New brief ahoy! Handmade students have to create a set of Royal Mail postage stamps to raise awareness of the issue of over fishing, and the book and film ‘The End Of the Line’
We were asked to choose a technique such as paper cutting or screen printing and make the stamps using that method. I chose knitting, because it’s something i’ve just started to master at craft club, and i really want to improve – i have high hopes of making hats and scarves to combat the hideously cold weather we’re having!
As part of our course we were asked to watch handmade nation, an unambitious but very charming documentary on the increasingly popular craft trend in america.
It’s very American, almost painfully so, but is filled with interesting interviews with people who make their living in craft – which for me is particularly interesting, as that’s sort of what i want to DO. It was rather comforting to know that there were people out there who did what they wanted and managed to earn a living out of it, however sparse that living is.
The documentary jumps from one person to another, all around the country, and we learn about what they do and their views on the ‘indie craft movement.’ Which at times is rather cringy, as they speak of ‘not being understood’ and being relieved to find likeminded people, because they felt isolated for ‘being crafty in a standardised society.’ (all of which made me scoff slightly). I would argue also that the ‘up and coming craft movement’ is not so new – there has always been craft, and crafty people, it’s just that demand for quirky, ‘individual’ items are on the rise, because of our need to rebel against the mass produced consumerist society in which we live. Its the industrial revolution all over again – globalisation causes people to break away from the mass produced, in search of something beautiful and unique, something that can be found within the modern arts and crafts movement. The craft movement has also gained steam because of the internet. With 25% of the world now online it’s almost easy to get recognised, and to gain a following. This, coupled with websites like etsy make it easy to sell your stuff and earn some money.
This doesn’t mean I’m not impressed with how the crafters in Handmade Nation go about their business – quite the contrary, i have a great respect for anyone who makes a successful living out of their hobby, but it it easier now, than it was 120 years ago.
Went to craft club today and learnt how to cast on, do garter stitch and cast off!
I would show a picture of my first attempt, but i unravelled it, twas a little bit crap
