Craft Articles

The site own came on the forum today looking for a review and of course to see if some craft people would add some ideas to the site..

10,000 wow..

Anyway I had a quick look and found this article of how to make a snowflake from … yep plastic bags..

Here a picture of what it looks like

The guide has 6 simple steps..

Here is the intro:

Snowflakes are great fun to crochet and really easy to adapt to your own style. These six-pointed snowflakes are simply created using plastic bag ‘yarn’ and with basic crochet stitches. 

Full article and more:
http://www.10000greatideas.com/ideadet.php?iid=638

Assisi embroidery is an Italian form of counted-thread embroidery that evolved in the town of Assisi during the 13th century. When Assisi embroidery was invented, Italy was already famous for its rich embroidery tradition and skilled artisans. Assisi embroidery encompassed old stitching techniques, such as cross-stitch, long-armed cross-stitch, Italian cross-stitch and Algerian plait stitch.

During the 13th century, Assisi embroidery was usually carried out on fine linen cloth and coloured silk was the preferred type of tread. Red, blue, green and gold were, and are still, the traditional Assisi colours.

Blackwork embroidery was often used to outline the motif. During this period, it was very popular to have heraldic beasts and other forms of heraldic patterns created in the form of Assisi embroidery. Altar cloths and chasubles used by the Catholic Church were also frequently adorned with Assisi embroidery.

During the 15th and 16th century, Assisi embroidery grew more fashionable in Europe and its use spread from heraldic and religious items to a much broader range of articles. Popular renaissance imagery such as demons and ancient mythical creatures was now often depicted by the Assisi embroiderers. As the renaissance ended, so did the popularity of Assisi embroidery and by the 18th century, Assisi embroidery had become extremely rare and was considered a thing of the past.

Assisi embroidery was rediscovered during the early years of the 20th century when the practise was revived in its hometown of Assisi. In 1902, ‘Laboratorio Ricreativo Festivo Femminile San Francesco di Assisi’ was established in an effort to create working opportunities for poor Italian women. Among the traditional local handicrafts revived in this “laboratorio” was the art of Assisi embroidery. Today, you can still see Assisi women carry out the craft in front of their houses in Assisi. The embroidered items are sold in the local cooperative embroidery shop or exported to other parts of the world.

Assisi embroidery can be described as “negative embroidery” since the background is filled with cross-stitches or long-armed cross-stitch in order to create a motif. This type of embroidery is also known as voiding, since the motif is left void. There exist two basic forms of Assisi embroidery: traditional and modern. The traditional form dates back to the 13th century, while the modern form was invented during the 20th century.

If you want to use the traditional Assisi embroidery technique, you begin by drawing the figures on fine linen cloth free-hand. Surround the motif with Holbein stitch and fill the background using the traditional Assisi colours - red, blue, green and gold. Modern Assisi embroiderers will instead construct their patterns on paper and a much broader range of colours are used for the filling.