The best social network you've (probably) never heard of is one-five-hundredth the size of Facebook. It has no video chat feature, it doesn't let you check in to your favorite restaurant, and there are no games. The company that runs it has just four employees, one of whom is responsible for programming the entire operation. It has never taken any venture capital money and has no plans to go public. Despite these apparent shortcomings, the site's members absolutely adore it. They consider it a key part of their social lives, and they use it to forge deeper connections with strangers—and share more about themselves—than you're likely to see elsewhere online.
Why
Ravelry is such a great community and social network.
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posted by Foci for Analysis
on Jul 7, 2011 -
109 comments
Urban knitting, guerilla knitting, textile street art,
yarn bombing. Whatever you choose to call it, this artform takes everyday objects of the city — such as trees, lampposts, street signs, bike racks — and wraps them up in colorful knit cozies. You'll find these wonderful oddities all over the world, from
Manhattan to
Sydney to Edinburgh to
Philadelphia to Oakland to
Chicago to
Bisbane and back to
Manhattan again. People have
written books about it. It has inspired an
Irish cellphone commercial. Metafilter's own
ErikaB made a
tree sweater that was featured on
Metafilter and on the front cover of Seattle's
The Stranger. Magda Sayeg's blog
Knitta Please is a showcase for some of her delightful projects, including a
Smart car,
coffee shop sign, and
crutches. (
Also, previously.)
[more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Jun 25, 2010 -
37 comments
Ann-Margret joins the Bay City Rollers to
entertain possibly one of the greatest audiences in the history of show business. (SLYahooV)
posted by fearfulsymmetry
on Jun 3, 2010 -
77 comments
Do you like vintage needlework? The
Antique Pattern Library is a collection of scanned craft books that are in the public domain. They contain patterns for crochet, knitting, tatting, netting, embroidery, needle lace, beading, and other crafts. See also
Home Work, a Choice Collection of Useful Designs for the Crochet and Knitting Needle, and
Beeton's Book of Needlework.
If vintage instructions aren't your thing, try
lace edgings from 1846 updated for the modern knitter.
posted by bewilderbeast
on May 17, 2010 -
12 comments
Crafting can be great. But beware:
crafting can also go spectacularly wrong. Fortunately for the benefit of those of us who might become so proud of having made something, anything,
all by ourselves, that we are oblivious that the result is an aesthetic travesty, there are websites making a valiant attempt to document the legion of ways in which crafting can get totally out of hand. Before you pick up those needles or scissors or fire up the kiln or soldering iron, check out:
Glitter Gone Bad;
Handmade Gone Wrong;
What Not To Craft,
Homemade Hilarity; and
Kraftomatic. The sturdy souls at
CraftFail (previously) deserve special credit for documenting their own crafting mishaps, and
Regretsy (also previously) and
Etsy WTF will help you choose wisely from among Etsy’s hand-crafted wares.
[more inside]
posted by orange swan
on Nov 22, 2009 -
65 comments
Knitting colourful and intricate wool mittens is a Latvian tradition. To welcome guests to a NATO summit in Riga in 2006, hundreds of knitters from around the country made
4500 pairs of mittens. The mittens were photographed individually before they were given away and arranged into
galleries according to the region they came from. No two pairs are the same.
posted by bewilderbeast
on Sep 9, 2009 -
22 comments
Crafters may look like a close-knit group, but the reality is that there are armed camps within crafting. Knitters and crocheters brandish their respective tools and claim their craft is easier to learn or more versatile, while those who are bistitchual remain determinedly on the fence.
For the uninitiated/uncrafty, here’s an explanation of the difference between the two. “Wooly Bullies” [sic], a documentary, explores the animus between the Needles and the Hooks. When Sandi Wiseheart of
Knitting Daily dares to mention the “c” word, she gets many comments from knitting readers who, while stressing that they have nothing against crochet, just don’t want to see it in their
backyard magazine. When Kim Werker, editor of
Interweave Crochet,
tries to talk to the Knitting Daily crowd about crocheting she gets even more negative feedback. Part of the problem seems to be that while knitters contend with the “old lady’s pastime” stereotype,
crocheters are up against the much more negative “granny square and toilet paper cosy” stigma. [shakes head in sorrow] Crafters, can’t we all just get along? and make stuff?
posted by orange swan
on Jul 13, 2009 -
111 comments
So you've spent the holidays playing games, but now you have to be back at work. How to get your gaming fix during commutes and lunch-hours, whilst keeping up with that resolution to Learn Something New this year? Well, you could make a
Sack-Boy. You can keep your portable games device warm with a
Zelda cosy. You can knit up a
Pacman scarf or a Space Invaders
bag or
socks if you're feeling retro. Or you can make a
pocket ninja, an
invincibility star to get you through the afternoon, a
maqgnetic Katamari ball to spring-clean that desk, or a friendly
companion cube. (and if you're too cack-handed to knit, you can sew a friendly cube with the pattern
here and tutorial
here!)
posted by mippy
on Jan 4, 2009 -
13 comments
Audio visual technology changes so fast that if you’re of a certain age you’ve been left holding the bag of cassettes, VHS tapes and vinyl records. What will you do with these AV artifacts if you no longer want to play them? Have no fear; you can have lots of crafty fun with your real audio. You can make a cassette tape
mini journal, a
cassette wallet or
cassette coin purse, or a
mini cassette lamp. If you’re into melting stuff, you can make a sculpture, such as this
skeleton, from the plastic. The tape can be crocheted or knitted into items like
totes,
evening bags,
Barbie halter dresses, or
baby booties.
[more inside]
posted by orange swan
on Dec 21, 2008 -
11 comments
While you may not be the shoe hoarder
some people are, you have shoes in your closet you never wear and you'd like to know what to do with them. Are they just boring? In that case you could just experiment with
new ways to lace them, or find a way to
make them light up when you walk into a room. Or you could draw on the shoes with
markers or
sharpies. You could also
paint them, going with the theme of your choice:
Art Nouveau,
Picasso,
Day of the Dead, or
any of the ideas here. You could cut
motifs from fabric and glue them on to your lace-ups,
cover your flats with new fabric,
bling up a pair of strappy shoes with glitter, or
embellish your flip-flops with some yarn. Is the old upper worn out?
Knit or
crochet a new one. Want to get where you're going faster? Make
custom roller skates, or
modify your bicycle. Do your shoes hurt your feet? Put them on your face instead as
a wrestling mask, or turn them into an
iPod case. Your shoes could also become a
birdhouse, a
planter, a
centrepiece, or an integral part of a
coat rack,
bookends or
leg lamp. If you're really not up to crafting, here are
11 non-crafty ways to recycle old shoes.
But what fun is that?!?
posted by orange swan
on Oct 29, 2008 -
22 comments
Got a stack of bras you don't know what to do with? Charities will accept secondhand bras in good condition, but if you're in the mood to be creative there are bra crafting ideas on the net. You could make a
bra wristlet, and then make a
sleep mask out of the rest of the bra fabric,
earrings out of the hardware, and a
toy out of inserts. You could make a lavender
sachet out of a bra and use it to perfume your lingerie drawer. One seemingly popular idea is to make a
cute and
feminine evening bag or, as one woman who wears a 36F quipped in a comment, luggage. If you're an especially sassy member of the Red Hat Society, you could make a
purse that matches your hat. Some people even make
hats out of the bras, though perhaps not every woman would care to
so obviously wear a
bra on her head. If you're a breast cancer survivor and want to avoid buying expensive and uncomfortably heavy prosthetics, you could
knit yourself a pair of tits and go right on wearing your favourite bras. You could also make an art installation:
a 5' bra ball. Here's
a list of 28 things to do with old bras.
And yes, I realize this post will make many of the men of MeFi want to get a lot of puns/juvenile comments off their chests, but titter away. You're probably just jealous you can't make such cool crafts out of your jock straps.
posted by orange swan
on Oct 28, 2008 -
49 comments
Perhaps in your non-Metafilter time or during the occasional power outtage you indulge in that charmingly antiquated past-time of reading a newspaper made out of actual paper. But, once you've read it, you're left with blackened hands and the necessity for putting that fragment of a dead tree somewhere or other. Aside from putting it in the recycling bin, which is responsible but kind of obvious
(and therefore would not necessitate a MeFi FPP) what can you do? One option is to make
handmade paper. If you're an outdoors type, you could make
organic flower pots,
some kites, or a
dory. If you're more of a fashionista or home decorator, you could make a
purse or a
bead necklace, weave a
basket or
placemats, or make a
bird. If you're a spinster, you could make some newspaper yarn as
student Greetje van Tiem did for her Design Academy Eindhoven graduation show. The yarn can be woven into carpets, curtains and upholstery.
Here's a tutorial on how to make the yarn. Then there's always papier maché.
[more inside]
posted by orange swan
on Oct 13, 2008 -
27 comments
The Last Knit. Yes, it's a one link YouTube post -- but it's a one link YouTube post about knitting, and that makes all the difference.
posted by jacquilynne
on Jan 1, 2008 -
29 comments
With winter's cold touch around the corner, some of us may need a little something
to keep us busy by the fireside on those chill winter evenings. With the abundance and variety of craft
blogs to be found, everyone from the novice to the expert should be able to find
inspiration
(and
even great tutorials!) for a
fun and
cute project. Enjoy!
posted by honeyx
on Nov 14, 2007 -
11 comments
Up here in the Northern Hemisphere, it's time to break out the sweaters. Wool too itchy for you? (
It is for poor Simon Cowell.) Cashmere and alpaca are easier to wear;
a surface comparison shows why. But you can also steer clear of animal fibers altogether and opt for fabric made from
wheat. For that matter, while you're at the greengrocer, also pick up some bamboo
(
1,
2), soy (
1,
2),
bananas, corn (
1,
2),
pineapple,
milk (
1,
2,
3) and
rice.
(
Vegan yarns previously in AskMe.)
posted by GrammarMoses
on Nov 6, 2007 -
13 comments
Toy art:
tribal scooters,
spider car,
little animal robots out of broken electrical parts, a
color changing house designed by a 14 year old boy,
of wood,
wind-up,
MunkyKing,
Ugly Dolls, out of
beer cans, with
balloons,
Cute Things,
artoyz,
toys from trash, tiny
knitted dolls clothes and
accessories, vintage and retro at
Tick Tock Toys.
posted by nickyskye
on Jul 7, 2007 -
15 comments
The Top 10 Geekiest Yarn Creations If you've ever felt knitting was in danger of getting
too sexy these days, the people at
Threadbanger have provided an antidote. They've compiled a list of the ten geekiest projects on the net, which include an Atari 2600 system
(on which you will never max your Pac-Man score), a knitted Hogwarts
(though it appears to actually be crocheted and needlepointed), and a scrollbar scarf. And if anyone wants a crocheted yoda hat and matching light sabre, I am not taking orders.
posted by orange swan
on Jun 3, 2007 -
41 comments
EZ does it. "Unventor" of the
Möbius scarf and the
Pi Shawl,
"
ur-geek of knitting"
Elizabeth Zimmermann
will be honored at the
University of Wisconsin's Design Gallery in the retrospective exhibit
New School Knitting: the Influence of Elizabeth Zimmermann and Schoolhouse Press (opening Oct. 27).
"EZ"
has been called "the Jerry Garcia of knitting: jolly, kind, unconventional, endlessly creative, often quoted, and
much-loved by countless people." More than all those things, however, EZ was an
Opinionated Knitter who urged her fellow needlepersons to think critically and inventively about their craft; in her
1999 obit the New York Times said she "brought a penetrating intellect and a sculptor's sensitivity to revolutionizing [this] ancient art." Plus she was
funny.
The Wisconsin
knit camp she founded is now run by her daughter,
Meg Swansen (heir to the throne in more ways than one); it was featured in a
Wisconsin Public Television segment that aired last December (warning: RealPlayer format; transcript
here).
posted by GrammarMoses
on Oct 19, 2006 -
11 comments
