Two Cool Calendar Kits To Stitch for 2014 From Heather Lins

These two nicely designed and beautifully packaged calendars for 2014 allow for some fun interactivity. The 'Stitch The Stars' and The 'Year In Stitches' kits from textile designer Heather Lins are simple enough for anyone to do and include everything you need. At $25 each, they make a perfect gift for friends, co-workers and Secret Santas.
Bonus: the stars calendar actually glows in the dark.

2014 Stitch the Stars Calendar Kit





Each month is screen printed with the corresponding constellation from the zodiac (eg. January is Capricorn). Connect the dots using the embroidery thread and needle provided. Just poke and stitch; it's super-easy! No embroidery skills required. Plus, with glow-in-the-dark ink and thread, the constellation gently glows after you switch off the light.

One 2014 Stitch the Stars Calendar kit includes:
• 12 5" x 7" calendar cards (Heavy, recycled card stock screen printed with glow-in-the-dark ink)
• 1 embroidery needle
• Glow-in-the-dark embroidery floss (It really works!)
• Instruction sheet
• Packaged in a kraft paper box


$25 buy it here


2014 The Year In Stitches Calendar Kit





Stitch a pretty design each month and create your own calendar. Using the needle, embroidery floss and calendar cards provided, just poke and stitch your way through the year. No embroidery skills are necessary to complete this easy calendar kit.

One 2014 The Year In Stitches Calendar kit includes:
• 12 calendar cards screenprinted on heavy, recycled paper (5" x 7")
• instructions (printed on recycled paper)
• an embroidery needle
• embroidery floss
• packaged in a kraft paper box


$25 buy it here

The Original Ads For Georg Jensen Compared To The Cross-Stitch Versions.

above: detail of the original photographs with details of the cross-stitched versions, composited by me

When the ads first broke last fall, world-renowned Scandinavian Silversmith Georg Jensen's original campaign featured Danish model Freha Beha Erichsen with its sexy but approachable photographs by Sebastian Faena.




Those photographs have now been embellished with cross-stitched versions by Danish-Irish artist Inge Jacobsen (some of whose previous work I shared with you here) and re-released as a new interpretation of the ad campaign for the Georg Jensen collection.


above: one of the spread ads for Georg Jensen, as it first appeared

Below is a comparison between the original 2011 Sebastian Faena photographs for the campaign and the recently unveiled re-imagination of the campaign by Inge Jacobsen incorporating her unique cross-stitching technique:

The original photo:

The cross-stitched version:

The original photos:


The cross-stitched version:

The original photo:

The cross-stitched version:

The original photo:

The cross-stitched version:

A detail of the above cross-stitched version shows how the Georg Jensen jewelry and tableware are not stitched over:


Here's a look at a video of original photoshoot for the Georg Jensen Collection with model Freha Beha Erichsen and photographer Sebastian Faena:


georg jensen
inge jacobsen

Hand-Stitched Fashion Magazines by Inge Jacobsen

Photography student Inge Jacobsen began her studies at Kingston University studying fine arts. She since switched to photography but combines continues to combine mediums in some of her works. She's intrigued by taking something commercial or mass produced and adding a handmade element to it, hence her stitched Vogue and Bazaar magazine covers and editorials.

Immortalizing Celebrity Screw-Ups in Embroidery: The Art Of Maria E. Piñeres

above: Lindsay Lohan's 2007 mugshot in embroidery

The description of her embroidered mug shots show, "A Rogue's Gallery" below is from the gallery's website:

With her signature medium of stitched needlepoint images, Maria E. Piñeres confronts media-saturated contemporary culture’s favorite guilty-or-not-guilty pleasure: the celebrity mug shot.



Celebrity culture exists today almost completely without boundaries. In adversity to the tightly controlled studio system generated publicity of Hollywood’s golden era, nothing today is off-limits. There is hardly any distinction between public and private - and the more private, stark, and embarrassingly real, the better. In the 1940’s and 50’s, readers of Confidential and other such scandal sheets collectively gasped a joyfully naughty, voyeuristic breath and eagerly wrung their hands at the novel site of police-file mug shots of Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra. The publication of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon (1958) furthered the airing of Hollywood’s dirty laundry into a cultish pastime and created an outlet for a scandal-loving subculture. Today, especially given the access-all-areas manner of internet-disseminated information, such images are commonplace.


Above: Mel Gibson

above: Robert Downey Jr., 2005

above: Lizzie Grubman, 2005

In A Rogue’s Gallery, Maria E. Piñeres captures an eerily doll-like Michael Jackson and a seemingly helpless Lizzie Grubman among many others. All are depicted in the police station after the initial brush with the law, yet before the indignant publicist denials and the ensuing round of post-release talk show appearances. In her new work, PIÑERES goes one step further from her previous series. Homespun grandmotherly needlework, already turned on its ear, is taken into the world of stars which have crashed and burned, darkly glowing through the atmosphere, onto the decidedly non-lunar surface of central booking.


above: Sid Vicious, 2005

above: Nick Nolte, 2005

Both the dazed Nick Nolte and snarling Sid Vicious (shown above) are given true VIP treatment: vertical diptychs featuring kaleidoscopic serial imagery of their respective mug shots with hallucinogenic multicolored backgrounds—a conscious mirror image of the windmills of her iconic subjects’ addled minds. We see a variety of emotions in these faces, rather then blank slates: guilt or embarrassment sometimes, but, more often, defiance, smugness, sweetness and, most often, rebelliousness.


above: Hugh Grant, 2005

above: Bobby Brown, 2005

above: Bobby Brown II, 2005

above: Macaulay Culkin, 2004-2005

This is Piñeres’ second one-person exhibition in New York. Her work has been shown in one-person and group exhibitions at DCKT Contemporary and, recently, in group shows at both Sara Meltzer Gallery and John Connelly Presents.


above: Little Kim

above: Eminem, 2004

above: Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day, 2005

above: Vince Vaughn, 2005

See her website here.

Contact:
Walter Maciel
Walter Maciel Gallery
2642 S. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310.839.1840
walter@waltermacielgallery.com
you can view a pdf of the artists resumé here.