If you haven’t picked up your issue of Fiber Arts an Interweave Magazine If you’d like to escape reality for awhile, step in to Mandy’s magical world.  Visit Mandy’s Blog and Interweave Fiber Arts page to see some incredible videos of Mandy’s work.  Mandy also has a smashing Flickr portfolio.

you will want to do so today. Many Greer is an astonishing fiber artist and you will want to become familiar with her work.  There are the most incredible articles in this issue of fiber arts that you will not want to miss.

Mandy loves mythology and turns ordinary spaces into enchanted areas where we’d all like to dwell. The outfits that she has crocheted for this extraordinary journey are stunning. What an incredible sense of mystery Mandy conjures up in her mind and then her fingers create these fantastic outfits.  The outfits you’ll be seeing in this issue are garments that come together in a collaborative film and dance.

If you have never read fiber art magazine you are missing out on Mandy’s stunning crochet!  Just looking at the pictures and reading the articles will give you amazing ideas as how you can integrate this artist’s crochet techniques into your own creations.

If you’d like to escape reality for awhile, step in to Mandy’s magical crochet world.  Visit Mandy’s Blog and Interweave Fiber Arts page to see some incredible videos of Mandy’s work.  Mandy also has a smashing Flickr portfolio. 

Mandy’s Biography:

Mandy Greer is a sculptor and mixed-media installation artist with an MFA in ceramics from the University of Washington (99’), where she held a Jacob K. Javitz National Graduate Fellowship. Mandy received a BFA in ceramics and a BA in English from the University of Georgia (96’) and went Phi Beta Kappa. In Washington, she has shown her work at The Bellevue Art Museum, The Tacoma Art Museum, and The Kirkland Arts Center; and in Seattle at The Henry Gallery, 4Culture Gallery, Soil Gallery, Consolidated Works and Priceless Works Gallery. She has also shown at the Tampa Museum of Art, Fl and Bucheon Gallery in SF. Her work is included in the books The Best of New Ceramic Art (1997), Fashion is Art (2003), as well as Soil Gallery, 10 Years (2005). Mandy’s work is featured in the video!  She received a 4Culture Special Projects Grant (Seattle) and an Artist Trust Fellowship (Seattle) in 2004. In 2006, Mandy completed a commission of a permanent installation for the Children’s Center in the Rem Koolhaas-designed Seattle Central Library as part of the “Library Unbound” series. She was featured in a 4-person show in San Francisco at The Lab, in 2006. Also in 2006 she had a room-sized installation at the Bumbershoot Arts Festival, Seattle, funded by a grant from 4 Culture and a City Artists Grant from the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, which was also seen at Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle. In 2007, Mandy made a debut in theatrical design with Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre’s production of A Tale of Two Cities. In 2008 Mandy had her first solo museum show at the Bellevue Arts Museum, Washington, debuting her largest installation to date, Dare alla Luce, along with a survey of her work from the past decade, supported in part by a 2007 4Culture Special Projects Grant and 2008 Artist Trust GAP grant. A full-color catalogue accompanied the exhibition. She was also nominated for the Portland Museum of Art’s Contemporary Northwest Artist Awards for 2008. In 2009, Dare alla Luce will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Craft, in Portland, Oregon.

One of my favorite pastimes is going to one of the larger bookstores and thumbing through all the craft magazines on the stands.  Drugstores carry very few crafty magazines, but the big bookstores carry racks of our favorite DIY magazines. I am always attracted to beautiful covers of the crafts that interest me. When I saw the Craftstylish on the publisher’s website I was immediately attracted to the cover and pre-ordered my issue and when I received it I was delighted with the felting ideas. There several fun felting ideas in this issue that I would love to share with you. So I will be thumbing through this magazine for you.

I have pictured a few of the amazing projects in felting from this magazine and I’m sure you’ll want to try them all. Felt an old sweater and then turn it into a crop designer vest and then add decorative stitching to really make unique.  Turn an ordinary pair of drapes or curtains into a designer’s dream with needle felting decorative edging. There is a gorgeous purse, pictured, titled felted times two. You first create the purse out of an old felted sweater and then you embellish it with needle felting and embroidery. Every project has complete illustrated instructions that are easy to follow. No matter what your craft, they are all covered in this particular issue of CraftStylish.  If you don’t win one here for you just can’t wait, than go over Taunton and order your issue today.

This magazine publisher “Taunton” is offering two issues of this magazine to two of my readers and I want to thank Jessica. To win this amazing magazine just write in the comment area “I want this”!  This giveaway will run from March 5th through March 14th. Visit craftstylish site that covers most crafts and new publications.

Pick up the latest issue of Fiberarts from Interweave Press or Subscribe for a year or two.  Just go to Interweave Press and get all the information you need.     ON THE COVER: Maggie Pavlou, Diana Coat, 2008; multi-layers of wool felt with slashed holes with attached vest. Pavlou’s organic felted garments are featured on page 42. Photo: Maureen Mahoney-Barraclough.
Maggie Pavlou fuses fabric in alchemy of wool and water. Inside her second-story Los Alamos studio, a whisper-soft cloak of merino wool hugs a dress form, rows of holes honeycombing the hemline. The Austrian-born Pavlou turned to wearable art after leaving a longtime career in retail management. She had picked up sewing and knitting in grade school in Graz, Austria’s second-largest city, but never took either craft seriously. Three years ago, a friend gave her some hand-dyed wool roving to play with and she decided to felt it, flattening the fibers with hot, soapy water and rubbing them with her hands to prompt the scales in the wool hairs to interlock.’

Winner of their 2008 fiber Valentine card contest!  Check out all the cards and get some charming ideas.

 

Pickup the new  issue of the Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts and you will have many ideas for you knit gift giving.  You also get a chance to enter the “COUNT THE SHEEP CONTEST” for your chance to win an autographed copy of It “Itches,” new this October 2008! Five winners will be selected at random from correct Count the Sheep Contest entries.  I am still counting sheep and keep coming up with more and more, so I go back and count again.  This is something the kids may enjoy doing with you!

The weather outside is frightful, but the knitting’s so delightful—so grab your yarn and needles and curl up with the third annual issue of Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts. From one-afternoon wonders to intricate treasures, there’s something to knit or craft for family and friends, other knitters, and even yourself. Learn easy techniques to dress up simple knitting, make luxury yarns go far, and get ideas for quick craft projects to share. And participate in our first-ever Count the Sheep Contest, featuring guest illustrator Franklin Habit, and win great prizes! Happy Holidays!

Since I joined Craft Gossip as the Felting Editor, one of the perks has been finding phenomenal sites and blog covering crafting and artists.  One of these sites is Interweave Press.  They offer books and magazines on beading, crochet, fiber art, jewelry, knitting, mixed media needlework, and quilting, spinning and weaving.   As you can see they cover almost any art or craft that you are interested in.  I subscripted to Fiber Arts and also bought one of the back issues covering wearable art, January 2007.  Fiber Art not only covers felting but also many other fiber arts and I must say have prompted me to try new fiber projects I have seen in this magazine.  The magazines are published on the highest quality paper and the pictures are professionally done offering you an upscale publication.   They also tell you about shops where you can purchase you crafting supplies for some crafts.  Also, they announce upcoming events that you can attend. In all the magazines and on the website Interweave Press shows and tells you about all the new books on the subjects that are of interest to you.  You can also see what types of articles are going to be in your next issue of the magazine you subscribe to. There is a section where they welcome submissions of article ideas and artwork for upcoming issues. Please check their guidelines and themes for details. I truly adore my Fiber Arts and can’t wait until I get the latest issues and hope to get into their knitting and crochet magazines soon.  All crafters in all areas check out the Interweave Press.Founded in 1975 by Linda Ligon, INTERWEAVE PRESS, a unit of Aspire Media, is one of the nation’s largest craft media companies with businesses in magazine and book publishing, interactive media, broadcast programming, and events for craft enthusiasts.   Linda Ligon remains with the company as creative director, a member of INTERWEAVE PRESS’S board, and as an investor in ASPIRE.The company is headquartered in Loveland, Colorado and has other offices in Malvern, Pennsylvania and Stow, Massachusetts.

I happened to run across this site and thought it was some out-there You Tube site, but to my surprise it was fun and gave me a laugh! They are DIY-ers and show some interesting things about crafting and so much more. They tell all the latest in magazines and what craft shows are taking place, plus what people are buying. Check it out and have fun viewing these two upbeat hosts and watch all their on the Thread Bangers You Tube.

There is also a lists of cool DIY sites selling their goods and new magazines.

 

A great last minute gift for any crafter would be a subscription to a magazine that includes their craft or offers them new ideas. 

1.     Make it Mine (felting)   

2.     Interweave Felting  

3.     Craft: 

4.     Annies Favorite Crochet Magazine

5.     Fiberarts  You can buy back issues and I bought the Fiberarts – Jan-Feb 2007