If you've not incorporated cork into your crafty adventures before, there's plenty of inspiration out there just now with designers turning out some really innovative pieces that show cork in a whole new light. We've been checking out the brightly decorated pieces at Decorque this week; a new family-run business specialising in all-things cork.

Their team have been here in London this weekend, getting inspiration from many of the big shows taking place over London Design Week.They've blogged about their experiences, with  some great images of the print highlights at Tent, 100% Design and more.

Cork is a great canvas for print, and we love Decorque's use of trend-led print combined with a classic floral design on these two orange rose and skin placemats:

It's a little bit Versace, don't you think? Loving the leopard! Just another example of how you can use cork to get so many different looks.

If Decorque's launch collection has left you feeling inspired, you might want to learn a bit more about the production process for making raw cork into the eye-catching pieces sold on the site.

To keep up to speed on developments at Decorque, their current adventures in design are all detailed in their blog; you can also follow them on Twitter over at @Decorque

I've been writing for Crafty Crafty since I first joined the team back in 2007 and it's been a glitter-glue covered and wild woolly ride.

As of my last day today I have written over 1200 craft posts. Here are some of my favourite posts from the last five years of Crafty Crafty creating:

Handmade Ryan Gosling interview

My favourite post of all time. I got to strip down the man who makes the ladies of the crafty world swoon, with questions of course, and it was good. Oh yes.

Nerdiest bras on the net

I came up with far too many boob puns and found a bra that looked like Pokemon balls. Nuff said.

Crafty feminist heroes for International Women's Day

Inspiring folks to make the world a better place is an amazing thing to do with your craft. It was my pleasure to choose six ladies who do just that is handmade spadeloads: Rachel Matthews, Louise Harries, Betsy Greer, Sarah P Corbett, Debbie Stoller and The Quilters of Gee's Bend all featured in my feminist heroes post.

How to use Instagram: the essentials

I fell in love with Instagram this year and wrote an epic three-post series on how to make the most of the awesome little photo app, tips and tricks to make your pics popular, and how to get in with the brilliant Instacommunity.

Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. You can find me on Instagram as @deadlyknitshade.

Squid craft FTW!

I can't choose a squid post as a favourite as I did so many but the stand out cephalopod craft moments would be Anne Perry's Kitschies Tentacle how to, the petrifying Giant Knitted Squid attack London's Natural History Museum, and this selection of squid hats.

Launching the Stitch London book

I wrote my first knitting pattern book, Stitch London: 20 kooky way to knit the city and more, in 2010 and Crafty Crafty was right there with me. We featured an exclusive gallery of all the little city knits. Wheeee!

Geek Craft!

Again there is so much geek craft it's hard to pick. The best of the best includes Knit Your Own Death Star, the Game of Thrones Gallery (featuring a very cute amigurumi Jon Snow), and cosmic Dr Who nesting dolls.

Street Art splendour

My love for street art turned crafty knows no bounds. Highlights from the high street were Japan's slightly icky Taxidermy Pikachu Rats, Hottea's yarny art with a difference, woolly love above London with Knit the City's Hubbub of Hearts, and Miss Cross Stitch's street embroidery.

Launching the UK's first graffiti book

Crafty helped launch the UK's very first knitting graffiti book, Knit the City by Deadly Knitshade. We were very proud.

Lego Love

As you can probably tell I'm a massive fan of the little plastic brick. Lego love was at its most passionate in posts about a graffiti Lego Bridge, a Lego HP Lovecraft house, a loveable Lego Totoro, and one of my first ever posts Giant Lego Man found in sea.

As I hang up my Crafty Crafty hat I'd like to say a huge thank you to the Crafty Crafty team who are also off to other crafty climes: Ellen, Emma and Kaja Marie for digging up amazing crafty finds. Also thanks to the team at Aigua for allowing us to share the crafty love.

Find Ellen at Little White Bird

Find Emma at Tofty Makes

Find Kaja Marie on her Ravelry designer page

And a HUGE handmade thank you to all of you Crafty Crafters for commenting, liking and joining in the handmade fun. It's been a blast!

What's next?

Fear not! I'll still be writing all about craft in loads of other places and I'd love you to stalk me on them:

Whodunnknit: Whodunnknit is my home online where I share my crafty madness and fill the world full of kooky little knits. You're all very welcome to join me there are www.whodunnknit.com

Stitch London: Stitch London is the UK's largest craft community and is pegged to be the next big UK craft news site and, lucky me, I'll be moving over there as Editor. Find it at www.stitchLDN.com

Twitter:
Stalk me on Twitter
@deadlyknitshade - I tweet about craft and other madness all day, every day
Stitch London - crafty goodness and London love
Knit the City - street art galore

Facebook:
Whodunnknit - purled pigeon patterns and all kinds of woolly fun
Knit the City - street art from around the world
Stitch London - craft love

Instagram and Pinterest look for @deadlyknitshade.

It's been an absolute pleasure writing for and wrangling this corner of the online craft world. May your glitter glue bottles be bottomless and your needles stay pointy, Crafty Crafters! 

I'm a seasonally-minded crafter, and as fall approaches, I start thinking about quilts! Patchwork is one of my favorite crafts at any time of year, but the thought of snuggling under a handmade quilt as the days get shorter and night grow chillier - that's a powerful, powerful motivator to get craftin'.

This teeny tiny quilt by During Quiet Time shows just how effective a simple design can be - I love how a relatively quiet, geometric block can just let your fabrics sing.

Looking for even more inspiration? Quilt guru (guru-ette?) Denyse Schmidt has a brand-new book out, Modern Quilts, Traditional Inspiration, that has lots of ideas for making traditional quilts look tasty and modern. Even better, most of the patterns in this book would be a doddle for anyone who had basic sewing experience.

What's your favorite autumn craft? Let us know in the comments.

I challenge you to look upon the works of Aya Kakeda and not fall instantly in love with her cute/vicious aesthetic. This able cartoonist, illustrator and embroiderer grew up in Japan, moved to New York to study, and now maintains a Brooklyn studio.

Does her work look familiar? Maybe you've glimpsed it in Macy's window, in New York's ACE Hotel, or in BUST Magazine. Or perhaps you've met one of the Moustache Sisters.

Check out Aya's blog for a cavalcade of crafty art goodness (she's currently doing a lot with pipecleaners and felt!) - and don't skip her website.

Have you got a craft heroine or hero you just can't stop shouting about? Tell us the whole story in our comments section.

Two members of the London's infamous Knit the City stitched street art collective, Deadly Knitshade and The Fastener, are inviting yarn bombing wannabes to learn from the masters at the first ever weekend course of its kind.

After its humble beginnings in the city with Magda Sayeg's Knitta conjuring street furniture cosies and in the country with Dutch artists Jan ter Heide and Evelien Verkerk creating their mushrooms and flowers as Knitted Landscape, graffiti knitting took a quirkier turn in 2009 when the stitched stories of Knit the City's amigurumi art burst onto the scene.

Knit the City's themes, creatures, sense of humour and utterly bizarre handmade super hero back stories started graffiti knitting on a new purly path. Their first 'stitched story', the Web of Woe, a crocheted spider web filled with over 40 woolly creatures about to meet their end in the jaws of hungry handmade spider, did something new with the yarny street art.

It lead to the UK's first graffiti knitting book, Knit the City: A Whodunnknit Set in London by Deadly Knitshade, and commissions from the likes of Nintendo, knitwear designers John Smedley and London's Natural History Museum.

Now they're inviting a handful of handmade heroes to join them at their Yarnstorm Boot Camp on the wondrous Isle of Wight for a weekend of woolly madness.

You'll learn about:

• Creating your sneaky stitching superhero identity
• Choosing your yarnstorming target and designing for it
• Secrets of successful sneaky stitching, including photographing the final piece and showing it off online
• Solo graffiti knitting and how to deal with the authorities
  
• The fibre-flinging fun of working in a collective

All recruits will graduate from KTC Yarnstorm Boot Camp as a certified yarnstormer and get a photo opportunity with Plarchie, the world's most handsome crafty squid.

The weekend costs a bargain £395 and takes place from October 19-21. Included are:

• Passenger ferry to and from the Isle of Wight
• Transport during your stay
• Fabulous boutique-style seaside accommodation
• All meals from Friday dinner to Sunday lunch (with more cakes than you can handle)
• 3 workshops
• a trip around the fabulous beachside town of Ventnor
• a personal shopping evening (including a trip to the 'mega-stocked local haberdashery)
• two yarnstorms (one solo and one as a group)
• a graduation ceremony (including an official group photo, a badge, diploma and goodie bag)
• All your basic materials (though you're free to bring along anything you want to use too)

Book a place at Yarnstorm Boot Camp on the Wight Away website

Find out more about what's on offer on KTC's Boot Camp info page.

It's your chance to hang with Knit the City, learn their secrets and get some sun, sea and sand while learning the ways of the sneaky stitch. Places are limited so book while you can.

One of my favorite things about living in New York is the proximity (and accessibility) of high-quality beaches - there are ten reachable by public transit within an hour of the city.
I've had some good sunny, beachy times this summer - which has me thinking about how I can keep the beach vibe going all year round.

How about a gallery of sandcastles, for starters? I've found some of my favorite architecture-in-sand - though not just on the beach! Etsy and Spoonflower are crawling with sandcastle obsessives like yours truly.

Please enjoy my sandcastle gallery - and share your own sandy memories and project ideas, in the comments section!

I can't say enough good things about Cotton and Curls, one of a breed of craft blogs where the design and photography are as good as the stellar tutorials on offer. Lizzie, the blog's author, is excellent at putting together some truly fabulous how-to's for making designer-level clothing without patterns.

But one of my favorite Cotton and Curls tutes is also one of the simplest - a glitter collar how-to that will make the little kid in you squeal with pure delight. The materials are simple, the results are stellar- and you can have endless fun trying it with all of your fall outfits.

If you're feeling brave, check out the Cotton and Curls DIY section - you'll be out fabric-shopping before you know what hit you!

- Ellen Lindner

Coming to New York City this fall? 'Tis the perfect time to get your craft on. I've picked out my favorite places to buy fabric, yarn, and notions in my home borough of Manhattan.

Some general tips:
- in New York, as in London, you pay extra for a fancy shop interior. Don't turn your nose up at a shop because it's not extra-smart.

- map your trip in advance! Some fabric shops in the Garment District, for example, are on the 3rd or 4th floor of their buildings - you won't spot them during a wander.

- New York is safer than ever; don't worry about visiting Harlem! In fact, stick around at a local eatery like Red Rooster or, in Spanish Harlem, El Paso Taqueria or Patsy's - who doesn't need a snack after a long day of shopping?

For more pointers on NYC craft shopping, click the image to see the gallery!

The museum also features a 10-foot section of the Berlin Wall, a two headed cow and a genuine shrunken head! Weird craft FTW!

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Fussy cutting is a way of cutting fabric for patchwork so that you focus in on a particular detail - say, a sweet little bird, or a particularly interesting paisley. This colorful sleeping bag tutorial by Stitched in Color takes fussy cutting to the next level - by creating an entire sleeping bag covered in chosen details from favorite fabrics.

I'm not a kid any more, but this sleeping bag makes me want to turn on a horror movie, make some popcorn and hang out until the early hours talking about how I'm going to marry Johnny Depp (which frighteningly, is once again possible!)

Got any ideas for making a sleepover truly memorable (that don't involve putting your mates' hands in water)? Spill 'em all in our comments section.

This Chevron Ombré bag tutorial by the very crafty Sew Caroline encompasses several great trends - ombré, of course (it's a kind of dyeing where colors fade into one another) and chevrons, as seen every season in the world of Missoni (and their many imitators!)

This project has my mind racing with possibilities. I love the fabrics she's chosen - the soft tonal progression in the blues is a joy to behold - but I'm also thinking of making a black version using bright Japanese prints, or simply choosing a few of my favorite quilting scraps and showcasing them in a random series of wonderfulness.

Plus this a great way to learn how to create patchwork - believe me, making this quilt-size isn't much harder!

Check out Caroline's other tutorials for some really great starter craft - plus some more advanced stuff if you're feeling ambitious!

Got a fave patchwork project? Let us know in the comments.

Got a lot of neat photos hanging about, but feel a simple framing is a bit too...meh? Check out this brilliant (no pun intended!) photo collage tutorial from Scraps and Scribbles - it's a great use of a basic star form!

This would be an excellent christening or first birthday gift for a special baby - or a reward for a neat-o student for graduation. I'd love to find a really mammoth star and make one of these especially to hang over our sofa.

Hoarding photos and ideas? Please let us know your favorite uses for cherished photos, in the comments section.

Craftivism

The animated short tells the tale of how a Mini Protest Banner came to be and how easy peasy it is to get your crafty world-changing message out there where people can see it.

Find out more about how you can do your bit at the Craftivist Collective.

You can also attend their "Love Fashion, Hate Sweatshops" workshops during Fashion Week on Sunday 9th September.

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Read more from Lauren O'Farrell at www.whodunnknit.com or follow her on Twitter @deadlyknitshade

Alice adapted this Flocked Nail tutorial from Cupcake's Clothes and added her own miniature world with model railway people.

Check out the amazing results over at her Flickr stream.

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Read more from Lauren O'Farrell at www.whodunnknit.com or follow her on Twitter @deadlyknitshade