Cool Stitching

Do you ever feel like using cross-stitch to rebel against all conventions?  You know, like when a large crowd of knitters run up to a bus and cover it in a humongous shawl?  (Pic borrowed from this blog!)

I do, quite often.  Working as an engineer and following (what feels like) 10,000 rules per day, some corporate rules, other rules of science, I sometimes dream about doing the crazy, expressive and unexpected in stitching instead...

I am also a total web-addict and "picture hoarder", so I have been gathering up these links for a while.  I thought that you may would enjoy some "craft outside the box" as much as I do, so here we go.

I found one site that has a lot of various craft anarchy pinned; Urban Thread's blog Stitch Punk.  The name says it all, I think.  Here you can look through pages of really cool and rebellious craft - or rather, craft taken to (post)modern art.  Here are just a few examples:

 

 

So that is cool, but here is the stuff that I really love - cross-stitch!
Easter eggs by Forostyuk Inna, the folk master of Luhansk region in Ukraine. Materials used are goose eggs, and acrylic floss.

Or these discarded every-day metallic objects, cross stitched by Serverija Incirauskaite - isn't this just the coolest!?  Now I want to go down to the basement and borrow Alpha-Bunny's drill....

 
 Her art reminds me of this sweet bracelet by Corina Reitveld (if you live in Europe, you can buy these pre-drilled cuffs from Panduro Hobby - pretty sure that's a Swedish company btw...)

Here are some other neat XS items, iPhone covers from Connect Design.  If you click on the link, you will find a bunch of different covers and patterns that you can use for other stitching adventures as well.

And finally, more traditional but still pretty cool, are the pillows, tea cosies and place mats from the Danish blog Tulipan og Tomater.  Here are some really pretty ways to combine patch-work with smaller XS designs into something useful and really wonderful:

I am guessing that the blog owner buys up bunched of vintage cross-stitch pieces that none wants anymore and she turns them into unique items that she sells in her store or at fairs.  Now, that is a clever concept and right with the times too, reuse, reduce, recycle!  (I am pretty much 100% sure that the butterflies patterns can be found in one of Fremme's old XS calendars.)

Well, that's it for now.  Don't forget to sign up for the giveaway!
Take care and Happy Stitching,