Free Resources Friday – The Sick Chick's Constantly Crafty

I’m very under the weather this week so I need to be brief. Hopefully this might give you some things to keep you occupied a bit until I get better 🙂

QuiltingTutorials.com is a website run by the folks at Missouri Star Quilt Co. There are many, many videos showing everything from quilting basics to intermediate level patterns.

Popular quilt fabric company Riley Blake Designs has 57 free quilting projects available on their site. I did find that in some cases the fabric requirements could be reduced if you can get a fat quarter instead of needing 1/3 yard to get a 10 inch square, also you may save fabric if you use pre-cuts. It all depends on the pattern. Just read closely before shopping. I plan to try several of the patterns in the future 🙂

If you want to try Craftsy.com for free but you are not a quilter, there is a free knitting workshop available for a limited time. (That is it is free for a limited time — and since you can always sign up now and watch the videos/interact with the instructor at any time in the future, it’s worth signing up even if you don’t have time right now.) The free workshop is the One-Skein Shrug taught by Stephanie Japel.

Finally, if you are interested in the history of fiber arts in Britain you may like to listen to a two-part series from BBC radio’s Coast and Country that is available for a few weeks on their website. You can download the shows or listen directly from the web page. In the 29 December 2011 episode (Gansey) you can learn about the history of knitting Ganseys. In the episode from 05 January 2012 (Knockando) they explore the history of a small Scottish mill, including weaving and rearing sheep. If you wish to download an episode, click on the Download link beneath the show title on the left hand side of the page. If you wish to listen from your web browser, click on the show name in the small box on the right hand side of the page and you can use their built-in Flash player.

In other news I did get my new sewing machine but I haven’t felt up to blogging about it yet. I hope to be over this virus in a few days so hopefully I’ll have plenty of things to show you soon!

I’m going to attempt to post most Fridays about the free craft resources that I have found and used during the week. I’m not going to focus on blogs or You Tube videos or individual tutorials unless they have really been a major element of my week, but I will mention courses, one-off videos, live events and similar things that I think you may not have heard about or are in some way time limited.

Please remember that these items are free but that doesn’t mean the producers wouldn’t appreciate something back from you, even if it is only comments! For more ways you can support free (i.e. make it worthwhile for the producers to keep making it), please see this series on Craftypod : Free & Sustainability (in crafty business).

This week, I’ve discovered:

1. Strathmore Papers has a free series of Online Artist Workshops this year, with a focus on visual/art journaling. The first one on doodling for mixed media has only recently started, there’s plenty of time to catch up and join in.

2. Craftsy, my favourite online craft class venue, has a free course that also just started. It is a block of the month sewing project to make a lap quilt and finish it all in 2012. Since Crafty had a big sale just before Christmas I am already knee-deep in some of their classes (and will be posting about them soon) but this is still excellent and a perfect way to get introduced to the Craftsy format. New videos will be posted on the 1st of each month.

3. Scrapbook Soup is a tv show in the US that comes out weekly on PBS (public television). Not all stations carry it yet (it just changed its name and format, it used to be Scrapbook Memories) so they are offering limited free streaming on Saturdays. One episode will be available each Saturday between noon and 5 pm EST. I know this is somewhat inconvenient but it is better than nothing 🙂 I’ve seen most of the series but missed the first episode so I hope to catch it tomorrow afternoon if I get back from the Quilt & Fiber market in time.

4. Sharon B of Pintangle is running Take a Stitch Tuesday again in 2012. This is a series of weekly challenges and tutorials in hand embroidery and is in its 3rd year. Even if you have done it before she changes up the stitches and the order in which she presents them. I hadn’t heard of this before but I certainly plan on following along, at the beginner level. I only found out about it after it started so I am behind a bit but I hope to catch up before next week’s lesson/challenge.

5. Urban Threads, my favourite source for machine embroidery patterns, often has freebies available. Right now their featured design is a little monster in a box with a “Free Monster” sign. So cute 🙂 The design is available in several sizes for machine or hand embroidery or digital stock art. It is free until the 16th of January.

I hope you find some of these things useful and if so, please let me know. Also do remember to thank the people who have made them available.