Handmade Nation in a City Near You

Handmade Nation, the 2009 documentary about the rise of DIY crafting, is still making it’s way around the country with premieres in more than 20 cities still scheduled. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the upcoming screenings on their blog.

First-time filmmaker Faythe Levine takes crafting seriously. So do the 80-some people she interviews in her well-crafted (pun intended) documentary about the growing art community that coheres around a belief in DIY skill and resourceful creativity. Many members of the indie crafting community spent their childhoods at flea markets, yard sales and thrift stores. Levine journeyed 19,000 miles around the country to discover what these crafters are up to today: selling mittens as band merchandise, knitting sweaters around street signs and networking with each other online, in stores and at craft fairs. This is a compelling look at the exuberant world of contemporary crafting.

Here are some of the upcoming events for September and October. Check out the Handemade Nation blog for more information on locations and times, plus more cities.

September 25-27th: Birmingham, AL
October 1st: Door County, WI
October 7th: Stadtkino, Vienna
October 11th: Tulsa OK
October 10th & 11th: Seattle, WA
October 24th: Norfolk, VA
October 25th: Huntington, NY

Hanukkah is a great reason to pull out your cross stitch fabric and thread and stitch up some fun seasonal cross stitch patterns.

If you have trouble spelling Hanukkah (I know I do!) you’ll want to stitch up the How Do You Spell… project from SKB Cross Stitch Design. This one includes a bunch of different ways to spell the holiday, along with some symbols like a dreidel and menorah. (Technically I think all the ways to spell it are “correct.”) The pattern includes full, fractional and bask titches, and measures 8.5 by 7 inches, or 21.6 by 17.8 cm. It has the date for 2004/5785 but you can easily change the year or leave that part off.

Another project with some fun word play is the Words to Live By chart from Sam Brie Stitches. This one includes Hanukkah related symbols and word presented crossword puzzle style, which is fun to stitch and to display. The design uses 10 colors and measures 74 by 103 stitches. It’s shown worked on 18 count fabric.

I may have shared these before, but the Hanukkah patterns from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery are so cute they’re definitely worth sharing again. Happy Hanukkah features a menorah, dreidels, gelt, stars and candles, and it fits in a 6-inch hoop. At 75 by 75 stitches, it comes out to 5.4 inches/13.4 cm on 14 count Aida or 28 count linen. They also have this cute little dreidel stamp cross stitch pattern, which is 39 by 49 stitches, or 2.8 by 3.5 inches (about 7 by 9 cm) on 14 count Aida or 28 count linen.

Works By ABC has a lot of great patterns for Hanukkah, but here are just a couple to get you started. The Rules for Dreidel design is fun for kids and adults and shows the different sides of the dreidel and what it means when you land on them. The stitch count is 62 by 94 and its shown worked on 32 count linen. It calls for three colors. I also like this menorah one, which measures 44 by 49 stitches and uses two colors along with coordinating seed beads. On 32 count linen as shown (equivalent to 16 count Aida) it measures 2.75 by 3.1 inches, or almost 7 by 7.8 cm.

Have you read?