Dear Next magazine,
Saturday, December 19, 2009
errata
Dear Next magazine,
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
hello, graffiti alley...
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Eeeeek - 2 days!
Knitters Unite for Climate Change - Monday, November 30, 2009 at 4:53pm
It’s really simple, you just need to cast 10 centimeters of yarn onto your needles and start knitting. Then send in what you have knitted and we can join all the pieces together. The objective is to peacefully protest around Climate Change and Copenhagen; we will have messages hanging off the very long yarn trail from Auckland's Aotea Square all the way down to Britomart! That's 800 metres to be exact!
There are no aesthetic requirements for your contribution. We just ask that you get it to us by December 11, ready for December 12th's global day of action calling for world leaders at the Copenhagen climate conference to sign a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty.
For more information, contact Oxfam NZ's climate change Campaign Coordinator Susi Newborn on (09) 355 6852, or susi.newborn@oxfam.org.nz.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Spesh!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Knitsch - the yarns, baby
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Peta is amazing!
Peta may not know it but I am a massive fan after seeing the work she did with Free Range Baby. Possibly the most gorgeous kiddo photos in the world come from that lady.
Thanks for letting us know Peta
xo
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Craft2.0 rocks our woolly world
We will be knitting and crocheting up a storm by the kids make table with all the tools of the trade - you just need to bring your lovely selves along.
If you would like to prep in advance feel free to get creative with anything of the growing kind - leaves, flowers, fruit, veges, trees, grass, animals...and we'll do a bit of an installation on the day.
As per usual we'd like to thank the truly splendid folks at the New Dowse - whenever we tag in their vicinity they do their utmost to look after our woollen misfits to keep in the place as long as possible.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
It's good. Real good.
Seeeee! The fence!
And then a bit of a write up on graffiti knitting including Knitty Graffity and the amazing Slip project from Christchurch.
I love Good magazine for the community building ideas it promotes. So go on, pimp your street! And say hey to your neighbours while you are at it! Speaking of neighbours, I owe mine a lemon meringue pie for some garden tools I borrowed. ;)
Thanks Good!
Friday, October 9, 2009
miscellany
Staveley stitches
My lovely maternal aunt runs the Staveley store (just out of Methven, mid Canterbury, not far from Mt Hutt ski field), where i've been hiding out the past couple of days. There's nothing better than sitting in the window knitting, drinking her awesome coffee and feeling like part of the community...so gave her a little 'OK' tag.
Monday, October 5, 2009
OutdoorKnit goes corporate
A fellow crafty mate who happens to work at Ideas Shop asked me to knit a sign to go outside their office. You see, they have a hand craft shop below and were in need of some street cred with the stick weilding types. I hope like heck it worked!
If any other businesses feel the need for a knitted sign - lemme know: outdoorknit@yahoo.com
And in other news... I have moved to Auckland. Watch here for my attempts to win over the hearts of the big city.
Luckily the ever fabulous Knitsch has returned to keep the knit alive in Wellington. She'll surely be able to post some of her latest soon. ;)
stiX
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Nanageddony rambling on Sunday
I haven't listened to it (as I have no internet access at home at present)... so if I sound rubbish, please let me know and I'll deny any knowledge of anything. Much appreciated.
Here are a few pics from Nanageddon. I didn't get any from the opening unfortunately as I was flitting from person to person and trying to stop my child from jumping all over the gorgeous crochet work that was displayed on the floor. No mean feat I tell ya!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Action in Amsterdam
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Hearts on Vivian
I can't even begin to tell you how awesome it was to have everyone down there doing their fence weaving thing. Each listening to my burbled instructions and words of warning about dropping the little yarn spool on the other side of the fence... and then completely disregarding anything I said and coming up with their own ways of doing things with FABULOUS results! haha
Thank you to my Chief Recruiter, Edmund... to the kidlet for behaving herself the whole day and retrieving our yarn when we did drop it... to the boy for taking the photos... to Pia for talking some guys off the street into sticking around and contributing to the project... to my Dad for his advice about efficiency... to all my freaking awesome contributors for showing up on the day... and to all the people who stopped while we were doing it to ask about the project and to say how cool they thought it looked. (And it totally did/does!)
Stop by and check it out if you are in the area. The fence is on Vivian Street... just before the intersection with Cuba, in Wellington City, NZ.
And finally, Wellington City Council - do something with this land! Extend Glover Park... open it up for art work... community gardens anyone? So much potential for so much community minded stuff now that you've gone and cut right through it with the bypass.
Edited: Thanks Sonja letting me know that my gripe should actually be with Transit NZ, not Wellington City Council. I maintain that they are both a bit crap. haha Surely Kerri could put a bit of pressure on? I'll have words.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Nanageddon!
Press release from the Roar! types:
Nanageddon showcases artists who are hailing the revival of stitching and knitting, subverting the idea of "Nana-craft" and reclaiming the art of craft in truly revealing ways.
In this exhibition, what might sound like the work of a harmless old lady, turns out to be the act of some edgy, post-modern and radical thinkers such as … Outdoor Knit, Di McMillan, Caroline McQuarrie, Athina Moisa, Ann Moore,
Nanageddon is a re-take on traditional craft methods as we know them …with artists who are using craft as an art medium. Recent talk of doom and gloom, global warming and recessions has prompted these artists to embrace the act of knitting, crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, lace-making and so on to positively reuse, reclaim, recycle and re-invent. They’re releasing craft from its personal adornment and domestic decorative responsibilities enticing it into the realms of conceptually driven art. Through their work, the Nanageddon artists are all offering a re-look at our social and political values, and the way we respond.
Nanageddon draws attention to a major shift in political emphasis - altering traditional methods of craft as a means of expressing society’s interest in challenging some of the power structures at play.
It highlights the bigger issues by representing the backlash to our current environmental mess brought about by mass and grotesque over consumption … while at the same time presenting what we, the little people can do to about it. Gatherings of subversive knitters are educating
Channelling the Dadaists, hunting down materials, rethinking social mores and ardently shredding the traditional fabric of society … Nanageddon is the end of craft as we know it and its not-for-the-fainthearted!
Join us on Thursday 20th August from 5 -7 pm,
for the Opening Celebrations of
Nanageddon: the end of Craft as we know it!
(And artwork that makes up its own rules.)
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The fence mission on Sunday
In other news, walked down Vivian St the other day and see they are doing a whole lotta road worky stuff right outside the fence site. I hope like heck that means they are finally getting their butts into gear to do something about it?!?! (Errr... or maybe not... it might impede the fence weaving process.) I'll go check it out tomorrow and post some news.
And watch the Dominion Post this Saturday as there may or may not be a little feature on us. The website will have a more in depth piece which I will share on here as soon as it appears online.
Andddd the exhbition knitting is well underway. I'm just trying to get hold of some promo material from Roar Gallery.
See ya Sunday! (Hopefully!)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Join the fence decorating movement!
Next Sunday (August 9th) I am going to be at the fence on the corner of Vivian and Bute St in Wellington, featured in this blog post, and I would like anyone (EVERYONE!) to join me in weaving hearts of all sorts of colours into the fence, all the way along the Vivian St side of the fence.
Why? I dunno. It's pretty.
But also because in a happy clappy way, I want people to smile.
And the fence is ugly.
And it seems to be going nowhere.
So this is an attempt to make something awesome out of something that is a big fat waste of land at the moment.
When? Next Sunday (August 9th) from 1pm
Who? Me (stiX)... and apparently 10 others if we are to take facebook RSVPs seriously. I don't... I reply to stuff all the time that I know I'm never going to actually attend! But, if you team 1/2 of the facebook replies with all the people I recruited on the bus this morning (Seriously. It was awesome.) then I think 10 is maybe actually slightly truthful... hopefully heaps more though!
Oh yeah, you totally don't need to know how to knit. And I'll supply the yarn. All you need is fingers. And I'm not discriminating against those that are fingerless... it just might make it a tad difficult ya know?
Email me if you want more details: outdoorknit@yahoo.com
P.S. If it's raining then I'm totally piking. By the way. But cold/wind - still totally there. I am a Wellingtonian after all.
Shite. Put the wrong date at the top. It's next SUNDAY! Definitely Sunday!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Tube Strike
Monday, July 20, 2009
Bute St gets some love
More fence art to come, I'm thinking. Because that is one hell of an ugly fence. The Council seems to have made a lot of changes, torn down a lot of buildings, built a gazillion new roads, but completing the projects is taking forever and we are left with quite a few wastelands.
The latest I hear with the area they flattened for the park by the Basin Reserve is that it isn't going ahead due to a funding cut. What are they going to do with the barren land and wire fence?
I suppose I should be grateful that they give us no end of issues to make fence art commentary on. :/
OutdoorKnit does Craft2.0
So come along to learn to knit, contribute to a graffiti knitting project, or pass on your knitting experience to others... and then venture out into the throngs of people to peruse some fabulous craftiness. You are welcome back into the oasis of calm of the knitting circle afterward to gather your wits about you again so you can return home with plenty of excuses of how that gorgeous little brooch/tshirt/bag/print ended up in your hot little hands.
So from 10am - 3pm at Craft2.0 this weekend, see ya there!
And thank you so much to Sue "make it happen" Tyler. You rock my lady!
P.S. A boring fence got a little yarny action yesterday and may get some more tomorrow night. I'll let ya know
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Magda Sayeg rocks the knitty world
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Spreading the word
I've got some work in the pipelines for a workshop (watch this space), an exhibition (also watch this space!), a photo essay in the newspaper, and hopefully a knitting class at the local high school (errr... space will be watched?).
My apologies that it isn't more concrete. You'll be the first to know when it is of course ;)
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I found the most inspirational site ever for the high school graffiti knit stuff - Identity School
I'm thinking my preferred option might be a little less structured; the class will be more of a space/time in which teens can express themselves... talk about love, lives, and struggles... cross social divides... and pick up a few useful skills at the same time.
Am I kidding myself?
We'll see.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
It will all be ok
So perhaps an appropriate time to announce - i'm heading back to wellington. Tough decision, but plenty to be excited about at home right now. Including projects galore.
Just remember: It will all be ok.