Dork Adore » Knitting Patterns

The State of Craft book review

Dork Adore — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

I’m a huge fan of the home-made gift at Christmas. For Christmasses past I’ve received hand-knitted mittens, homemade plum chutney and wallets with Manga characters stitched on.

Meanwhile, I’ve inflicted on loved ones gifts such as garishly striped scarves, a tie – covered in sequins and the word “DAD” in felt appliqué – and C90s with painstakingly detailed inlays.

As the last order-in-time-for-Christmas dates approach in shopping sites, I’d much rather spend a day cosy indoors hand-making presents for the geeks in my life than face the horror of Christmas shopping on a real-life high street.

New book The State Of Craft (edited by Victoria Woodcock, Cicada Books) offers plenty of inspiration for presents.

The book is a mix of crafting tutorials (knitting, French knitting, sewing, cross-stitch and crochet), interviews with professional British crafters, and craft projects.

The tutorials are probably a bit too brief for someone with no previous experience, but they’re a good reminder if you know the basics. Of the actual projects, there are some seriously geeky treats amongst the sixty-plus illustrated instructions and patterns.

Water Pistol lights

Maris Schiess contributes a tutorial on making festive decorations using fairy lights and cheap water pistols. Quick, colourful, and Christmassy.

Dazzling 3-D Tee

Next up, something to wear on Christmas day. Mr Wingate has provided a tutorial on making a brilliantly eye boggling, screen-printed t-shirt. It’s a little unclear from the tutorial whether it’s actually 3-D, but certainly the layering of yellow, pink and blue prints make for a striking geometric print.

It also requires more specialist materials than some of the other projects – a proper silkscreen is required – but it seems like a good intro to printing your own graphic t-shirts. Which seems like an eminently useful skill to me.

Mini Protest Banner

Cross-stitch, cross-stitch! Something about the combination of embroidery and pixellation makes this seem like the geekiest of the crafts.

Craftivist Collective are producers of handmade mini banners for non-violent activisim, and for this book have provided a brilliant pattern for a Superman cross-stitch, with the words “Good planets are hard to find & I can’t f*@king save you this time”.

Again, this looks like a quick project to whip up in the evenings leading up to Christmas – if you can’t face any more drunken office parties.

Always useful to know how to embroider an “@” symbol, too.

Invaders Tote Bag

My absolute favourite piece from the book has to be Urban Cross Stitch’s Invaders Tote Bag featuring – you guessed it – an embroidered Space Invaders screen shot, complete with high score, credits, and laser beam.

The project also features water-soluble cross-stitch canvas, which I’d never heard of before but am now dying to get my hands on.

The finished bag looks brilliant in the photos, but it also inspired me to think of what else could be improved by the addition of hand-stitched aliens. There’s a whole world of fabrics looking mightily in need of some boxy alien spacecraft to me now…

State Of Craft is a fun, easy-on-the-eye craft book with plenty of nerdish treats between its covers.

But, to be honest, if the handmade present idea seems a bit too much like hard work this Christmas, there’s still time to go to Amazon – or a lovely local bookshop – and just give the book itself to any craft fans in your life.

State Of Craft is out now (£14.95, Cicada Books)

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Gryffindor scarf knitting pattern: Harry Potter Craft Roundup

Michelle — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:20:24 +0000

Even those non-Harry Potter fans amongst us couldn’t fail to have noticed that Harry Potter fever is upon us again! In honour of the imminent release of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1, here is my pick of some of the best Harry Potter related craft projects and tutorials for your enjoyment.

Want to go around scaring the bejesus out of everyone? Then why not have a go at making a Death Eater Mask from Tektonten Papercraft. Both full size and half size mask templates are available.
Declare your allegiance with these free crest stencils by Jennifer Ofenstein from her blog sewhooked. Simply print out and cut out the gray area and get stencilling!
Instructables has a whole heap of amazing Harry Potter inspired projects, some of the very best are even collected together for you in a handy guide! One of my favourites is this super simple Awesome Harry Potter wand project by KaptinScarlet that requires little more than a sheet of paper, a glue gun and some paint! You can even get fancy and add a UV LED in the tip and then you will have a wand that can reveal all sorts of secrets!
And we couldn’t do a Harry Potter pattern round-up without including a free Gryffindor scarf pattern could we? This rather stylish example was designed by Rachel Alexandra from the bookke werm’s realm.

What wonderful handmade creations will you be sporting when you go see the film?

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Free TARDIS socks knitting pattern

Michelle — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 10:33:59 +0000

Banish boring socks this Christmas!

Grab those knitting needles and whip up a pair of these wonderful TARDIS socks in time for the festive season. Give them to friends and family and you are guaranteed* to be their favourite son/daughter/sister/brother/friend.

The free pattern is available from the witty little knitter website, which is a website dedicated to the knitting of the authentic Doctor Who scarf.

Seriously, if there was ever anything you wanted to know about those scarves, including an analysis of the relative scarf lengths, I’m sure you could find it on there!

Whilst you are on the site I heartily recommend you take a peek at the My TARDISes section and check out her full sized Police Box and TARDIS tattoo!

*Please note this is not a legal binding guarantee!

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The best craft blogs of the week

Emma Cossey — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:00:07 +0000

This week is the start of a new series, where we round up the best of the posts and news in the crafty blogging community.

First up, Crafty Crafty found a free pattern for these cube craft Scott Pilgrim characters above.
Our very own Michelle Duxbury rounds up the best back to school products on her blog Craftville.
Craftzine has a tutorial video to make your own Mozilla Firefox necklace.
Craftgossiping shares a video for a sock skeleton, so you can get cracking in time for Halloween.
Multibeavo offers up the pattern for a Super Mario Scarf for the colder months.

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Space Invaders from head to toe

Emma Cossey — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:30:37 +0000

Space Invaders stole a large part of my childhood with its addictive playing properties. Therefore, it’s only right that I pay tribute to this simple game by wearing the famous icons with pride.

A simple t-shirt just won’t do. A true tribute to this mighty game can only be made through the medium of one particular item of clothing.

Socks.

Knitty has an excellent free pattern to create your own Space Invader socks, complete with game points.

Want to pass the retro gaming theme onto your mini dork?

This cosy little hat will keep your baby’s head warm, and will invite plenty of compliments.

To create the Space Invaders baby hat on the right, head to Instructables, who have a free step-by-step template available to create your very own version for your son or daughter, or even an adult. Simply extend the pattern available to suit the head size.

Have you found any great patterns recently that you think we’d love? Let us know!

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Bella’s Twilight mittens – free knitting pattern

Katie — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:00:33 +0000

Any self-respecting Twilight fangirl will want to get herself a pair of the mittens Bella can be seen sporting in the movie.

This knitting pattern, created be self-confessed Twilight obsessive, Subliminal Rabbit, is totally free. Plus, the mittens are pretty special even if you’re not fussed about what Bella and her grumpy bloke are emoing on about.

You can get the free knitting pattern from Subliminal Rabbit’s website. What a nice lady!

Also on Ravelry.

More Twilight on Dork Adore

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Dork Adore » Knitting Patterns

The State of Craft book review

Water Pistol lights

Dazzling 3-D Tee

Mini Protest Banner

Invaders Tote Bag

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Gryffindor scarf knitting pattern: Harry Potter Craft Roundup

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Free TARDIS socks knitting pattern

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The best craft blogs of the week

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Space Invaders from head to toe

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Bella’s Twilight mittens – free knitting pattern

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