zabet_speaks

This just in. I encourage accomplished AntiCrafters to submit!

The American Craft Council is now accepting AltCraft applications for our flagship show in Baltimore!

Fifteen makers will be juried into this bustling section, which celebrates the innovative techniques and materials of the burgeoning handmade movement. This is an opportunity for talented artists and indie designers to gain national exposure at a well-established show.

Every year more than 700 artists present their work at the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore, attracting a crowd of 25,000 enthusiasts to the largest juried, indoor craft show in the nation. The average booth is valued at $1,500 but as part of the Council’s commitment to indie crafters, the cost of participation is just $400, which includes a skirted table, electricity and lighting trusses in a shared space. Plus, there’s no application fee!

Applicants are eligible only if they have NOT shown in an American Craft Council show previously. Show dates are February 27-March 1.

The deadline is Thursday, October 23.

Please submit:

• (3) low-resolution images of your work
• A brief description of your work (materials, dimensions, techniques)
• Your contact information (mailing and email addresses)

Send submissions and inquiries to Erika at altcraft@craftcouncil.org.

Finalists will be announced in November.

.:Zabet

 

We don't watch TV, but we do watch things on DVD, so a subscription to Netflix works well at Chez Zabet. If you don't know how Netflix works, you might live on Mars. Ok, sorry -- seriously, they send you a DVD in an envelope and you tear a flap off of the it to get to the DVD. The envelope then becomes the postage-paid return envelope for sending the DVD back. Very thrifty, very green. I judiciously deposit the envelope flaps into my recycle bin, but my friend Robyn clued me into something fun to do with them before consigning them to recycling: Netflix Origami, which gives you designs that work with those not-quite-square paper flaps.



.:Zabet

 

We all know I don't like babies but I do love me some Hat patterns from Woolly Wormhead. Those of you with babies in your life might want to check her new booklet out. It's 10 patterns for £5 sterling (about $10), available as a PDF only (sorry, Johann).



.:Zabet

P.S. Sorry for hijacking the blog this week. I just keep finding things I want to share!

 

Whedonists out there will enjoy this blog immensely.

Whedoncraft: Collecting crafts inspired by the work of Joss Whedon.

Shiny!
.:Zabet
Who has knit her share of Jayne hats.

 

[Ok, I'm evil. I wouldn't blog this yesterday because I wanted to make sure I had a chance to buy the über-pack before it sold out.]

I have huge stalkery Dresden Dolls love, so I thought I would mention that Dolls' frontwoman Amanda Palmer released her debut solo album today [yesterday], Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Now, Dolls fans fear not, this does not signal the end of the Dresden Dolls. It was just a thing she was compelled to do.

The album is being released with Amanda's signature theatrical style. It is not just a collection songs carefully crafted and honed by Amanda Palmer and produced by Ben Folds, oh no. The videos (available on Amanda's YouTube channel) tell a continuing story, centering on the murder mystery theme. However, furthering her artistic relations with friend and director Michael Pope was not enough. Amanda then teamed up with one Kyle Cassidy, photographer extraordinaire, and wordsmith Neil Gaiman (aka God) to further flesh out the story.

What's that dripping on the floor? Oh, it's GREATNESS. Careful, don't slip.

.:Zabet

 

Y'all may already know this, but Twist Collective opened it's doors a little while ago. I've been meaning to mention it for some time (since at least August 4th, judging by the timestamp on my notes). It's opening came upon the heels of a discussion I had with my husband (ok, more like one-sided rant) about print magazines being nigh upon useless.

You see, I had just gotten the latest issue of Vogue Knitting in the mail -- don't ask me how, I don't subscribe, they just started showing up -- which if you don't know is published quarterly. Now, I would say it's safe to estimate that I don't care for about 98% of what Vogue offers up. It's too haute couture, too skinny-person focused for me. That won't stop me, however, from flipping through the pages of a free magazine and looking for inspiration. But as I flipped I found I was more annoyed than inspired. Never mind the ads -- too many of them, of course, but that's how you pay to print and ship a magazine that brings your reader 25 patterns for a mere $7 (less if they subscribe). The news was painfully out of date, the kind of stuff that's been on the internet for ages. (I've experienced this with Interweave Knits as well, so don't feel I'm picking only on Vogue.) I find it hard to believe that the demographic who buys Vouge Knitting overlaps much with the un-wired demographic. (Which I will admit in my head are those living in rural areas and define a good yarn as being one that is cheapest -- I live in Kentucky so I can make statements like that, thankyouverymuch.) About a third of the article space seemed dedicated to "non-ad" ads, i.e. hot-knitting-accessories-of-the-season-type "reviews" (how much they cost and if any celebs have been seen with them).

I figured you could strip this $7 mag down to about 25 pages of actually useful material (if you included the glamour shots of the knitwear). The knitwear is divided into thematic groups, with about 4-6 pieces per group. The technical articles could be pulled together into another group, and the cultural/historical articles would be another.

My brain took those puzzle pieces and rearranged them like so, which I think would be a fabulous way to run any quarterly mag that focuses on making something:

1. Stop printing. It's a waste of resources from start to finish. It's a money drain. Just stop. Give it up. Print is dead.

2. Obviously, turn web-ward. Vogue has a website already (which I am only vaugely familiar with), but it would need a serious redesign and some heavy back-end coding. All patterns and articles should be offered electronically (PDF) with a download link via email. (See steps 3 - 5.)

3. You will never, ever be current on news again if you don't just turn a news section into a blog-like feature. It's just the way of the world now. News = blog = news. And make it free.

4. Let people pay for the content they want, how they want it. Put those 25 pages into a PDF and offer that as a subscription -- say, for $5 an issue? That's the same as the print subscription rate. Put those groups I mentioned above into their own subscription feeds as well. $1/issue for tech articles. $1/issue for cultural/historical articles. $2/issue for all articles. $3 for a group of patterns. Throw out a free pattern every issue. If someone wants a printed copy, they can print their own -- and you KNOW that we knitters will make a "working copy" of the pattern anyway so we can check things off or make notes or crumple it up in the bottom of our bag without losing the original, so why not just let us print one?

5. Single-time purchases could still be made (with a preview of photos and article abstracts). Full issue $7. Tech articles $2. Cultural/historical articles $2. All articles $3. A group of patterns $4. Delivered again via PDF download link in email.

Honestly, is it just me or would this cover their bandwidth and production costs just as effectively (or more effectively?) than selling to advertisers and paying to print and ship? Hell, they could still sell to advertisers, but in a less obnoxious way, say a la the Knitty marketplace model. It seems to me that this way Vogue could spend less time promoting how great and cool they are to get subscribers to keep their advertisers happy, and more time just being great and cool without the middlemen.

But back to Twist Collective. They are certainly innovative in their business model and moving in the right direction. Things I love: All their pattern are for sale, so the designers get paid. Were I running the AC like a business and not like a hobby, I would make sure designers get their due off the bat. (As it is, we live on your gracious donations of brain power.) I would like more photos of the items on the purchase pages, and it took me a bit to realize that they have a faux-paper-magazine layout with full photo treatments of each item... and ads. Oh, web applets that try to mimic turning pages in a magazine or catalog, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.

So Twist Collective is a pallbearer in the inevitable demise of the quarterly printed craft mag, and a welcome one at that. This funeral procession is moving much, much too slowly as it is.

I should also mention: the offerings are quite lovely. Whoever is choosing the projects has a nice (if "normal") aesthetic.

.:Zabet

 

The fall issue of WeaveZine contains many words I don't understand (heddle, sett, 6-dent reed), but many pictures I do (shoelaces, framed purse, scarves, tote bags). If you're into weaving, go check it out!

.:Zabet

 

Move over, Brenda, my newest love in the land of Wales is Wicked Woollens. Check out these awesome helmets!



(Thanks, Sage!)
.:Zabet

 

Ok, these socks were designed in 2006, so I'm probably the last person to find them, but I think they're awesome:



Hot, hot, hot!
.:Zabet

 

 

Enjoy.
.:Zabet

 

Well, lookie here. We're in The Guardian!

The Rebel Knitter's Guide

Ok, that was poorly feigned surprise. Obviously we knew, as we had to knit items for them.

The article centers on Mazz of Adipose fame (if this is gibberish to you, don't worry—you're obviously not a fan of Doctor Who; please identify yourself in the comments, as you will be eliminated), but also gives some basic info and has patterns by Mazz.

Big thanks to The Guardian for including us (and for spelling and capitalizing everything correctly)!

.:Zabet

 

Yeah, so I don't really do the kid thing--I know that most people without children generally find other people's children cute, but kids and babies have just never done it for me. I only make that high-pitched "cute baby" noise when shown a kitten. So, even though I am completely uninterested in 99% of Jujube & Lolo's patterns (though they do look at least to be well done), I am entirely in love with with this free "MOM" tattoo stuffie pattern:


.:Zabet
(thanks again, Simone)

 

That would be because I had to do a lot more tech editing on this issue than I normally do. This is why you all should love and worship the tech editors like I do!

(Me? I'm fantastic at ideas, organizing, HTML, and making stuff if I have the time. Put me in front of a page of text and my brain just checks out!)

.:Zabet

 

I'm sitting on the chaise-lounge, listening to some crazy pipe-clanging that is happening right outside my front door. Ah yes, dear readers, there is an emergency of the domestic kind in process. Everything but the water heater and furnace in my house is electric, so I suppose I should be happy it's summer because the gas to my house has been turned off due to a leak of some kind. The sidewalk beyond my driveway is torn up all to hell.

No problem, I thought, I'll just fire up the G5 I signed out from work, connect to the Intel iMac in my office, grab the files and finish the issue at home. Except that I had forgotten one thing: just before I went to Canada at the end of June, my G5's power supply gave out, which is why the issue is living on my office computer to begin with. (How am I typing to you now? Very. old. laptop. Like, great-grandaddy old.)

But what does this mean to you?

Come on, I know you guys are smarter than the average bear. I think we all know where this is headed. Risk of death + non-working computer + workmen who say they will want to get into the house this afternoon (which I have completely neglected the past week in favor of working on the issue) = run around like crazy cleaning + delayed issue.

Maybe I should try to make some money off this so I can quit my day job and have things done ahead of time around here. That sounds sort of lovely.

I'll let you know as soon as the issue is up, but it probably won't be until Friday because of other commitments I've got this week.

.:Zabet

 

This just in:

The Radical Cross Stitch Posse are proud to announce the arrival of their new baby. Out of the clicks of the needles and the desire to celebrate our wonderful creative communities and internet archive of the herstory* of radical craft has been born.

The Fabric of Resistance is a non-hierarchical community created archive and celebration of radical craft action and organisation, past and present. The wiki style archive has been established as a resource for radical craft practitioners, historians, students. The Fabric of Resistance is a tribute to the creative resistance which is often marginalised by both crafters and activists, yet has provided the visionary spark for great uprisings, revolutions and major social change.

So we have started this wiki as a public archive of profiles of activists who use(d) craft as a way of communicating their ideas, resistance and vision. And at some point in the future, all these stories will be collated into a book.

This wiki is a constant work in progress. So this is a call out is for the stories of women and men you know in your community who use craft as a form of resistance.

Please add your stories, preferably with images. We want to know names, dates and issues. But we're especially interested in the stories behind the work. Tell us about the design processes as well as the creation process. If you want help with questions to ask people let us know.

And please don't hold back because you think some information you have is not significant enough. Even if you just remember someone's name from some protest back in the day, add it in because it might be a good lead for some else to follow up on.

Finally, please pass this information on to people you know who might want to help collect these stories. We need this call out to go as far and wide as possible.

Love and rage and solidarity.

.:Zabet
*Please note my personal aversion to the word herstory - being a linguistic geek will beat the reimaginings of words out of you. This word is largely unchanged from the original Greek, save the addition of the aspirated h at the front. It has absolutely no relation to the English word his and never has. Also, it seems pretty sexist in this usage, as if a boy never crafted anything that was subversive or revolutionary in nature. We have got to get over this "girls only" craft thing, it's just as evil as any "boys only" stereotype out there. I'm just sayin'.