I’m offering a monthly embroidery workshop (in English and German)!

Every first Thursday in the month, I’ll be hosting an embroidery workshop at La Bastellerie from 7pm. It’s 15€ per person (not including materials) and is a freeform workshop, meaning you can come in with your own stuff and some questions, you can grab one of my kits and follow a specific project, or you can just pick up some thread and a scrap of fabric and start stitching! I’ll teach you how to do the kind of embroidery that interests you – from beginner projects like counted cross stitch, to surface work such as crewel, to more advanced techniques like goldwork and stumpwork.

Currently I’m limiting it to 5 people and last month we booked out. So please sign up by emailing La Bastellerie (labastellerie at googlemail dot com) and if you do sign up, please show up or cancel by the day before so that we can offer the place to someone else.

Speaking of the day before… the first Wednesday of each month is the open Bastel Lounge, a Stitch-n-Bitch styled event for hanging out with folk and doing crafty stuff. No cost involved, just bring along your projects and join us (go on, you know you want to).

I love Wonder Cabinets. I love the original Victorian ones, full of fossils and bones and other curiosities. The things that kind of freak you out with the horrid fascination of someones toenail collection or dried umbilical cord. Why, just, why would you store that?

Now Berlin is getting one of its own – but this is of a more handmade nature. Curated by Leah Buckareff of Cold Snap Bindery and hosted by La Bastellerie, you can come admire, goggle at and even buy the curiosities on display.

I’mJane Nicholas’s amazing book

Now because it isn’t a design of my own, I’m offering it for sale, but all proceeds will be put straight into Kiva, a micro lending organisation helping individuals around the world achieve great things by giving them a starting boost into self-sufficiency. I’ve been lending through them for a few years now (here’s my lending page ) and encourage everyone to do it. There’s even a Stitchalicious group for lenders I’d you’d like to take part in that.

So that’s my part in the Wunderkabinett, for now at least. Pop by the website if you can’t come and see it in person – Leah will be showcasing all that is going in there.

Please sign up beforehand by either sending me an email, leaving a comment here or going via La Bastellerie’s site (click on Anmelden to sign up).

Here are the details again in German:

Was Du schon immer über Sticken wissen wolltest, aber nie zu fragen wagtest:

Jacinta Lodge (www.stitchalicious.com ) führt Dich gekonnt in die Kunst des Stickens ein.

Workshop-1, 4.2.2010, 18:30 – 21.30 Uhr

Sticken für Einsteiger
Hier lernst Du die Grundkenntnisse im Umgang mit Stick-Nadel und Faden, was diese seltsamen Muster bedeuten, und die häufigsten verwendeten Stiche und Techniken. Am Endes des Tages hast Du dein erstes cooles Stück selbst gestickt!

Workshop-2, 4.3.2010, 18.30 – 21.30 Uhr

Coole Klamotten selbst gestalten
..oder Kissen, T-Shirst, Taschen, Tücher. Bring ein Kleidungsstück mit, oder beginne mit einem unserer Geschirrtücher. Lerne, wie man Designs auf Stoff überträgt und diese dann mit der richtigen Technik stickt. Gib Deinen Kleidungsstücken eine ganz persönliche Note. Verwende dazu eines unserer Designs oder bring ein eigenes Bild mit!

Beide Kurse können unabhängig von einander belegt werden.

Kosten 20 Euro / Abend .Materialkosten Extra.

Hey! Tara from City of Craft has put up the first of a series of interviews with the installation artists taking part this year. And this one is mine! Go and check it out, and make sure you go back to see what other amazing artists crafters are going to be exhibiting soon.

MrXStitch is going to be one year old next Thursday (well, the site is I mean. Jamie, judging by his zucchini, is older) and he’s celebrating with giveaways and new patterns and all kinds of stuff. If you don’t know the site yet, go and check it out – he and his trusty sidekick Beefranck manage to find amazingly cool embroidery from all around the ‘net.

Here’s the full deal on the birthday bash (there isn’t a world-wide video conference call thing organised as far as I can tell, but maybe we can pressure them into it?)…

On 27^th August, Mr X Stitch will be one year old, and there’s lots happening!

First of all we will be launching a new range of cross stitch and embroidery patterns from some of the newest embroidery talents out there. When you find out who they are, you’re going to want them!

We’re also announcing a new roster of guest posters, who will be bringing you more views from the wonderful world of stitching.

And finally, the information you’ve all been waiting for…we’re having a giveaway!

Yes indeed, you will have the chance to win one of the following:

• A gift pack from the awesome Subversive Cross stitch!
• One of Emily Peacock‘s fabulous needlepoint kits!
• A free sampler of your choice from Miso Funky!
• A copy of Manga Cross Stitch, courtesy of Ilex Books!
• An original Beefranck stitchery!

…

• And a piece of work from some wiseacre called Mr X Stitch.

We’ve also got a special prize of a batch of light effects threads that will end up with whoever makes us laugh the most over the course of the week. Can’t be bad!

So spread the word, tell your friends, and we’ll see you there!

Things have gotten unusual but exciting here in Berlin. Tomorrow there’s a crafting vs hacking workshop called Chips with Love at the new coworking location Studio 70. What’s crafting vs hacking? Well I’m glad you asked because I’m not entirely sure myself, but it appears there’s going to be a lot of playing with arduino and the like. They’ve already decided on a few projects that we’ll attempt to make during the day: a ballerina doll which reacts to/interacts with her environment;  a baby onesie which will measure and document the baby’s temperature and sound; and a remote controlled penguin softie. All of that is meant to happen tomorrow afternoon when a bunch of people show up in a room with some random electronic and craft stuff.

Sound ambitious? Well, it does to me because I have all the electronic wizardry of a blue-winged duck with rheumatoid arthritis. Hopefully some of their know-how will rub off on me and that by the end of the afternoon I’ll be soldering left, right and centre.

Who knows- by the end of the year I may be well on my way to creating an embroidered robot hell-bent on world domination. One can always dream, right?

So finding folks such as Linkle, La Bastellerie and Cold Snap Bindery has been great and we’ve started forming a very loose collective of German crafty businesses (akin to the Craft Mafia or Church of Craft) called the Bastel Brigade. It’s probably unsurprising that of the five people involved, only one is German, but we’re hoping it’ll start to swing in the other direction sometime!

La Bastellerie puts on craft party events every few weeks and they’re always lots of fun. The next one is on the 25th of July in the pool at Tent Station Berlin. That’s a camping ground near the Hauptbahnhof and the event will take place IN the pool – which doesn’t have any water in it. La Bastellerie supply lots of materials and help and keep going from the donations on the evenings. So come along, make stuff and donate to keep the crafting alive!

To get you in the mood, here’s a few shots of me at one in early June, at the bar Ä in Neukölln as taken by the wonderful photographer Steffi Loos. I made a little notebook that I printed myself (you can tell it was my first time huh?). And no, that isn’t Leon Dog Wonder but an imposter who was almost as cute. More photos of the evening are here.

This Saturday, July 4, there’ll be a clothing swap and remake event in Neukölln. I’ll be there, helping out (and playing around) and it’s hopefully going to be a huge thing. bring clothes you don’t want/like/fit into and swap with others for stuff you DO like. And if it doen’t quite fit, or isn’t quite your style – mod it! there’ll be sewing machines and Linkle is there to help. La Bastellerie will be offering all kinds of dyeing and stencilling stuff and I’ll be there if you want to embroider stuff.

Here’s the official info:

Fashion Reloaded

The event is all about the expedient reutilization of old threads. Within an huge clothing swap you get rid of your used clothes and you go with your new beloved stuff.

FASHION RELOADED is multidisciplinary coping with clothing in a diversity of expression forms: get inspired, cut, jam, design, sew, print, stitch, turn around, perform, record. Set your mark on fashion and deliver your style.

Young designers and artists as well as social engaged persons and visionary are called to liven the rooms and the scopes for development with their own way & creativity. FASHION RELOADED is the place to present their responds to fashion.

WHAT TO FIND
+ Clothing Swap – swap till you drop
+ Workshop station: Creative Styling – create your own design
(you do it on your own & with professionals)
+ Designer stations – new unique clothes freshly made from the designers
+ Fashion Show – Open Catwalk
+ Open Source Design – use the hot & stylish patterrns of the designers
+ Hit-and-Run-Screenprint – print print print
+ Workshop station: Craftivism – Accessoires & more

THE PLACE
it is going to take place at

Kaiserliches Postamt Neukölln
Karl-Marx-Str. 97

next to U-Station Rathaus Neukölln

CONTACT
http://www.fashionreloaded.com