Craft Stylish

Craft Stylish is a new ezine/craft site which is part of the Taunton chain of sites. Taunton publish Threads magazine. There are lots of small quick and useful tutorials and articles which make the site well worth browsing if not subscribing to in your RSS feed.

Take a good look at the look and feel of this site as what I found the design and business model even more interesting than its content for it is heavily influenced by the crafting and stitching blogs even to shaping the site as a social site where you can share what you make.

 

Free sewing patterns

Over on Spool there is a free pattern for a lovely bird.

Made up in contemporary prints like the birds illustrated the design is a sure win with the crafters set but since it it a 3 piece pattern it would lend itself to being embellished. So hand embroiderers and crazy quilters would also find this pattern appealing.

These birds would make lovely gifts but I also saw these little birds as possible Christmas tree decorations either embellished or left plane depending on your taste. Yes I know its June but I start thinking of this sort of stuff early …

Down load the PDF file from Spools sidebar and thanks for link goes to Whip up

While we are talking about free sewing patterns available online over on Tipnut.com is a huge list of 56 free Apron patterns you can make

 

My new community site for textile folks

Waving to everyone in very excited manner this morning! For l those with very sharp eyes. Last night a little bit of text appeared in my side bar which reads “Visit stitchin fingers a new community site for stitchers.” Well for anyone who noticed great work!

I have finally got around to doing something I have meant to do for ages and that is create a stitchin/textile community site over on Ning.

For a long time I felt that the community needs a hub that can act a depot to spread news of events etc. Ning is a social software site that helps people build communities. I think may provide the service the textile folks need. Ning looks to be good place to make announcements, share news and photos hang out online etc.

I have called the network Stitchin Fingers So far I have put a forum on there, and since Ning has an RSS feed so you can subscribe and new activity will appear in your reader. It is an ideal place to act as a hub for all sorts of news and activities that the whole community can make use of. So all are welcome to use it and be as active as you choose on the site.

It is free and looks like members can have up to 100 photos. Members can load their own photos, create albums, share them etc. This feature alone would have made it ideal for any of the challenges I have run. It means people who don’t have to have a blog can join in on activities and for those that do have blogs they tell us about them there! But its more than simply that. As I say its a community site - or I see it as that and I will keeping pure self promotion at bay . People can use it to spread the word about textile related events but I don’t see it as an avenue for business to peddle their wares.

Last night I spent far too long trying to decide on a theme and I will organise some sort of image in the banner. I don’t want to spend an age designing something only to find not one is interested. Basically I will polish it the more people join and use it.

Since its free you have nothing to lose head over to Stitchin Fingers, sign up, join and leave a hello message and we can see what develops from there. Bloggers and those on lists please help spread the word because it will not work if people don’t know about it. This is a community site so lets hope it builds!

I have described it as “The group is open to all who are interested in textiles both contemporary and historical. Since many textile practices cross or inform each other all areas are welcome “
Actually I will reshape the description when figure out how to describe the group as I am sure it will shape itself!

If you are not sure what a Ning site is take a look at the fiberarts mixed media group as you can see it is for anyone who is interested in contemporary fiber arts and its a good example of what a group site can look like

This is what prompted me to finally get this network site going as Tricia of Lets Create contacted me as she is establishing a group for people who are interested in challenges. Go and check out her blog here This is the sort of news that is ideal to spread on the Stitchin Fingers site.

On another note I thought I would bring this link to Designer Bookbinders to the top as kimsarahtillyer left a comment point me to it. Designer Bookbinders was founded over fifty years ago and is a society devoted to the craft of fine bookbinding. There is some delicious eye candy in their gallery so do go and gobble some up (after you have checked out Stitchin Fingers that is)

 

Tutorials and resources online

A PDF containing sample colour palettes, and bead suggestions, is on the  Margie Deeb site in order to promote her book The Beader’s Color Palette. Also if you like looking at colour palettes or are a beader check out her blog  Color for Bead artists

On Sew and Sox Jen has listed a good number of sewing tutorials online. Check them out as there are many projects that are either great gift ideas or good stash busters.

 

Make a sewing kit

This tutorial on Mackville Raod shows you how to create a small traveling sewing kit bag for toting around sewing supplies. It is a cute wallet made up of three handy pockets to hold things like threads, scissors, needles, etc. For those who carry a visual journal in your hand bag it is also an ideal pattern that easily be adapted to a wallet to carry a modest amount of drawing supplies. So as a fabric stash buster check it out.

 

A pot holder from a dish towel

Artsy Crafty Babe has written a tutorial on how to make a potholder from a dishtowel. Why would want to do that? No fuss with padding or binding making it supper quick and easy. I think its so easy it would also be suitable for young sewers such as children learning to use a sewing machine. They could make them as gifts. So check out the Dish Towel Potholder Tutorial

 

Podcasts and sewing

If you sew Burdastyle is a site well worth exploring as it has has free printable patterns, a forum, a blog and instructional material on the site.

For those who enjoying listening to a podcast while they stitch Annies Quilting Stash will interest you

On another note Jerry has finished one of his big projects for this year as he has just built a pochette which is a type of violin. Check out the story and you can hear it here too!

 

Sewing patterns, tips and advice

BeSewSylish is part of the Taunton website. In other words they are the same people that run Threads magazine but BeSewSylish is the blogging end of the company. The teams writes about sewing, dishing out tips and info along the way. For instance they have produced a two page Glossary of sewing terms which is downloadable in PDF format.  Tips and Tricks for Sewing with Silk written by Ann Steeves is a very useful article not only for those interested in sewing garments but Crazy Quilters too should find it useful too.

This button bracelet attracted my eye as since I am a thrift store addict who can not walk past a jar of buttons I am always looking for interesting ways to use the more plain ones (the fancy ones find a home in Crazy quilting)

There are many other tips, advice and projects I discovered while poking around this blog but I will leave the rest exploration up to you!

 

A few recent tutorials

Over on B’ette’s Needlework Musings B. Huysing has published a tutorial on Starting and Ending Threads

Ira’s tutorial on how to make  Needlewoven leaves prompted Alison Aller to try them out with a more curved leaf shape. Don’t miss Ira’s Second needlewoven leaves tutorial

Indie Fixx is running a series of tutorials on Tuesdays under the heading of Tutorial Tuesday. Check it out and the associated Tutorial Tuesday flickr group is fun.

Also on Flickr is  Sew a Placemat and add an iron-on applique produced by Jane of Glorious Hats

 

Three links

With Autumn just around the corner in Australia I am once again looking at my knitting needles and crochet hooks. These Toe up Socks look as tough they would make great house socks and it would be a really useful pattern for using up wool scraps

Also Burdastyle has open source free printable patterns. You will find the catalog here

Quilting with Janet covers quilting techniques in a series of step by step tutorials