March 17

In amongst the cartoon sheep…

Bright and early yesterday morning I headed off to the 2012 Stitch and Craft show in Kensington. To be honest, it was much the same as these things tend to be – the big fairs never seem to have their finger on the crafting pulse, and the embroidery area was particularly unaware of the modern craft movement. But tucked away in a corner, behind the cross-stitched Winnie-the-Poohs and past the Jo Verso samplers was a lost gem – Mr X Stitch‘s stand. Pushing my way past all the middle-englanders fighting over ”bargain” pastel shades of thread had been worth it for the chance to meet one of my crafting idols.

I got snaps of of truly awesome pieces of stitched art that I will share with you in my regular slot on Tuesday (if i can hold off that long. This stuff is gold – cyclops robots, raver tigers, QRs and Mondrian graffiti is just the start), but I just wanted to stick my head through the door and let anyone in the London area know to head down and say hello to Mr X – he’s lovely; very friendly, funny and upbeat (and rather tasty-looking).  Plus he has biscuits.

Elsewhere in the show, the quilts exhibition is well worth a browse as there are a few interesting nuggets, and the knitted village is… unexpected. Though I didn’t have time for any of the workshops there are some good ones on offer. Even if you don’t want to sign up to a proper class, lots of stalls were doing demos, or had staff more than happy to explain how particular pieces were made. It’s a good excuse to get out and about this weekend.

The works In the above image are (clockwise from top): Kanye by Crapestry, X-Stitch Robot 7 by Eliot BK, QR Code by Crapestry, Rokit by Mr X Stitch

 

Stitch and Craft 2012 at Kensington Olympia 2, this weekend

Mr X Stitch’s blog

Category: Craft, Geek | 2 Comments on In amongst the cartoon sheep…
February 29

Handmade QR Code Die

Yo dawgs, I heard you liked crafted geekery. So I found you a hand-needle-felted QR code die that, when rolled and then scanned, resolves to between one and six six-sided dice (1d6 to 6d6) being “rolled,” via random.org. So you could geek while you geek.

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OK, maybe that meme’s played out.

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Seriously, though, I can’t begin to express how pleased and impressed this craft makes me! First of all, my forays into needle felting were both unsuccessful and physically painful (I wish I were joking), and, second, just cross-stitching one QR code was sufficiently challenging that I promised myself I’d never do it again. There was some pretty serious time and dedication invested in this craft, which I found on Shannon Henry’s Flickr stream, via, of course, Pinterest. She describes it as a “meta die,” which makes sense, right? I wonder (but not enough to do the math myself) if it has the same distribution as a d36.

Anyway, hats off to one very geeky, very talented lady!

Category: Geek | 1 Comment on Handmade QR Code Die
December 5

Well, hello there!

Hello! I’m Coral, another new Geek Crafts blogger! I’m an engineer-turned-web librarian living in Anchorage, Alaska with three birds, a chinchilla, and my very geeky husband. Obviously, I’m a computer geek and a fan of science fiction/fantasy literature: it’s almost required for my job, right? I’m also into tabletop roleplaying games—Shadowrun was my first love, but I’ve enjoyed everything from Exalted to Call of Cthulhu and Dungeons & Dragons—and an ever-shifting array of fandoms. While I’m not a computer gamer, I’m married to one, so some of my crafts have followed that theme. See also: weighted companion cube! (I used plastic canvas and yarn, as well as some deceptively heavy filling.)

As for my craft habits, I have a deep and abiding love of oldey timey craft styles reapplied in funny, geeky, and snarky ways. I love geeky (and subversive) cross-stitch, especially, though I’ve been known to knit on a loom, to home brew beer and soda, to cook up a storm, and to attempt inadvisable things with a hot glue gun. Learning to crochet is definitely on my to-do list, because there are so many excellent patterns out there!

To the left, you can see a QR code cross stitch I did (the first and last ever). It actually resolves to text—a quote I particularly like.


Anyway, I plan to bring the library love, along with my love of SCIENCE!, internet memes, bird nerdery, good speculative fiction, terrible vampire novels, caffeine, RPGs, and bicycles to share with you every Wednesday. If you want to know what I’m up to on a daily basis, you can find me on my personal blog (mostly library stuff, with some craft content), on Twitter, or Google Plus. (If you add me on G+, drop me a note to tell me you belong in my craft and/or geek circles! :))

Bonus points if you get the ::1 joke. ;) If not, I explained it here.

Category: Books, Computers, Craft, Games, Geek, Video Games | 3 Comments on Well, hello there!