Baltimore Satellite Reef Project

Have you heard? The Baltimore Satellite Reef project is accepting submissions!

The hyperbolic crochet coral reef project was conceived to bring awareness to the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. Since its start the reef project has spawned satellite reef creation around the world, and now it’s in Baltimore. I certainly don’t need a reason to pick up my hook, but isn’t it great when you do and can be a part of something that connects community and a great cause.

Click through full details about the project and how you can contribute (my effort is pictured here). 

Information about the upcoming exhibition below:

The Baltimore Satellite Reef (BSR), a satellite of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project (HCCR), facilitated by artist Karida Collins is coming to Gallery CA. Community members young and old from all around Baltimore City have crocheted this enormous coral reef replica. The larger HCCR project began in 2005 with Christine and Margaret Wertheim, of the Institute for Figuring, in response to the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. The HCCR is a community arts project that creates new methods to engage the public about scientific and environmental issues. With an unusual fusion of mathematics, marine biology, handicraft, collective art practice and environmental consciousness, the BSR will be a unique and distinct part of what may be the largest community arts and science project in the world. Because of the flexibility of the formula and creativity of each community, it will be totally unique from the others, much like the ocean’s living coral reefs.

If you are interested in participating please contact info@galleryca.org to be connected with the project organizers.

The BSR, and all related programming, was made possible by generous support from The Institute For Figuring, the Office of Community Engagement at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Neighborhood Fiber Co.

I couldn't resist re-posting this bit of awesomeness from CRAFT Magazine! I want one...

Mechanical Loom Made From Legos

I would really be remiss if I didn't make sure to point out this incredible Lego Mechanical Loom posted by John over at MAKE.
More:

• How-To: Lego Sewing Machine @Craftzine.com blog
• How-To: Lego Necklace @Craftzine.com blog
• DIY Lego Birthday Party @Craftzine.com blog

2hands Indie Craft Market

A new crafts show opportunity in the Severna Park area was just announced! 

The brainchild of four local artists, 2hands Indie Craft Market hopes to unite and highlight local crafters and showcase musicians from the area. Deadline to submit to this juried craft show is Sept. 1, 2012. That's just around the corner...

Head over to their website for the full details: 2handsmarket.com.

Craft Happy,

Krista

Don't Miss This...

Charm City Craft Mafia's indie show, Pile of Craft, is Saturday, June 25, 2010 from 10am to 5pm at 2640 St Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21218, inside St John’s Church.

This year’s fair will have over 65 of the best local and national crafters, as well as a weaving demonstration, by Carly Goss of Carlybird Weaves (and Krista's fabulous teacher), a free photobooth, and a raffle to win a huge basket full of goodies that supports Baltimore Clayworks. Don’t forget to check out the vendors before you go. Pure awsomeness!

Extreme Yarn Craft

World Wide Knitting (and Crochet) Day is this weekend (and also International Yarn-Bombing Day too)! A veritable fiber frenzy. Pick-up your sticks and yarn and make something!

Afraid to go solo? You can do it with friends at Lovely Yarns (www.lovelyyarns.com) this weekend in Hampden.

And check out the post below from today.msnbc.msn.com.

Yarn happy!

Krista

A new trend is inspiring people to sew the oddest of things

By Brooke Lea Foster

TODAY.com contributor

updated 6/6/2011 4:16:04 PM ET

It all started with a door handle. Magda Sayeg was tired of the standard brass handle in the entrance of her Houston boutique. So she knitted it a sweater. The knit handle made her smile, but she didn’t expect so many people to pop in her shop and ask about it. “It was this selfish urge to add warmth to my surroundings,” says Sayeg, 37. “People were so excited.”

It inspired her to knit a cover around a stop sign pole near her shop. Then a knit cover for a fire hydrant, and another for a mailbox. She’s since woven a career around knitting “suits” for unusual things, like a car, motorcycle, even a city bus in Mexico City. Her dream project: To cover a plane in a knit sweater. “There’s something nostalgic about knit and crochet,” she says. “There are the notions of childhood, it makes you feel carefree and happy.”

Sayeg, a mother of three in Austin, Texas, is credited with inspiring a knitting revolution. It’s called "yarn bombing.” Think of it as graffiti in chunky knits. Renegade crafters around the world “storm” a public space with colorful displays of knit and crochet. Many take photos of everything from bridges to streetlights covered in knit and send them to Sayeg; she’s received emails from Hong Kong, Estonia, Capetown. “If I can encourage a grandma to go out and do something like tag a friend’s mailbox, that fills me with joy,” says Sayeg. (She’s gotten emails from a few such longtime knitters.)

According to Leanne Prain, the author of Yarn Bombing: The Art of Knit Graffiti, Sayeg has inspired crafters accustomed to sewing functional items like potholders and baby blankets to use knit as art. Why would anyone want to knit a car or, say, a stop sign rather than a sweater? “It’s fun to express yourself without rules,” says Prain. “When you put something knit up, people want to touch it and feel it. It’s taking back knitting as a form of self expression.”

One Paris artist knitted colorful pothole covers and installed them on city streets to call attention to the Paris’s deteriorating roads. In the Alps of Italy, a 200-foot-long knitted pink rabbit is on display until 2025; it’s so big that you can see it from Google Earth, and yes, it’s rotting.

On Valentine’s Day, some knitters have crocheted hearts and left them around their hometowns, says Prain. During the World Cup, she says, fans will knit small flags and hand them out. On Easter, a statue in Boston was yarn bombed with a pair of bunny ears. Two artists in Washington state, who call themselves "2fibrefriends," knitted Dr. Seuss-like trunk covers for trees in their town. "We started small but one thing led to another … and before we knew it, we were covering 20 foot stumps in our fair city with 68,000 yards of yarn or 38.6 miles," one recently told Prain during an interview for her site,http://www.yarnbombing.com/.

Agata Oleksiak, a 33-year-old artist known as "Olek," covered her Brooklyn apartment — from the walls to her TV to her furniture — in knit. The knitted room is now an installation at the Christopher Henry Gallery in Manhattan, and her works will be on exhibition at the Smithsonian next year.

Dr. Karen Norberg, an epidemiologist and child psychiatrist at the University of Washington, knitted a human brain and posted it online. Other crafters have knitted condoms or weird science projects, like a frog mid-dissection with his internal organs exposed.

Artist Ed Bing Lee uses macramé (a process using knotting rather than knitting) to create food items, like cheeseburgers and tubs of popcorn. Each object takes about 3 to 6 weeks to complete and is made up of 200 to 300 knots per square inch; they cost between $2,000 and $12,000. Lee doesn’t think that working with fiber is trendy. He’s never heard of yarn bombing. “I’ve been knotting for well over 30 years,” he says. “I like to believe that I have moved beyond the trendy stage.”

Born out of the growing interest in DIY and crafting projects, the knitting revolution seems to tap into the desire to live a more authentic life in a technological age. Knitters around the globe are so inspired that one woman in Canada declared International Yarn Bombing day — on June 11, crafters around the world will take part in renegade knitting. So if you see a stop sign in your neighborhood covered in rainbow crochet, don't be surprised.

Says Sayeg: “We live in fast-paced times. Maybe we’re ready to see something with a more human element.”