04 November 2010

Counterculture crafting

You wouldn't know it by looking at a gallery of the projects I've done, but I am a huge, *huge* fan of subversive or counter-culture crafting. I'm also firmly in favor of reinterpreting the meaning of "traditional" and using modern themes in traditional crafts. As such, some of my favorite knitting/crocheting projects are amigurumi, or amigurumi of TV characters (Nibbler and Bender imagined as toilet paper holders are just brilliant), colorwork with Space Invaders or robot themes. I have also recently stumbled upon Quiltsryche, which is a punk/hardcore rock take on traditional quilting.

In a word: I love it. Okay, that's technically three words, but Oh. My. Gosh! This woman took a traditional handicraft and turned it completely upside down in a brilliant way. I mean, even if you aren't a hardcore metal fan, you have to admit that her designs are pretty inspired. When I see designs like these, whether they match my personal style or not, I feel like an explosion of creativity is just around the corner. If you can turn "Rock out with your cock out" into an heirloom quilt, I'm pretty sure you can do just about anything. First, crafting, next, the world!

In less exciting, but explanitory-type news: I am a terrible photographer. There. I've said it. It's kind of hard to make an interesting crafting blog without pretty pictures, but honestly? I find the whole photo thing to be irritating. It takes me a long time to take them, then upload, then place them just right... Whine, whine, whine. I'm making a concerted effort to include more images in my posts - um, starting with the next post... I promise... I should warn you though: they will be overexposed, or underexposed, or blurry. I fell like I am an all-around creative person, and fairly good at the creative projects I pick up, but photography just isn't one of them. But I'll try to put something up, at least!

2 comments:

  1. Space Invaders knitting ftw! Have you seen the Norwegian sweater? http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cheese-attack

    The pattern was lost for a while, but has recently been recovered. It's in Norwegian, but I'm hoping I can figure it out! http://cvkrogh.blogspot.com/2010/01/strikkeoppskrift-space-invaders-pa.html

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  2. I have that faved in Rav! I love it! I *totally* think you can pull off that sweater. Charted colorwork section - just add it on to any generic comfy sweater and you're golden!

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