Stitch, bitch, repeat…my stuff

Posted by: annahell on: Friday, January 22, 2010

In: random | she's crafty | snooty art hound
4 Comments

Mood:	10% wistful, 50% ebullient, 22% other
Music:	The Yeah Yeah Yeahs-Heads Will Roll

Continued from here.

Let’s just get right to it, shall we? Here’s a picture of the scarf I completed right around the beginning of the new year…

Anna with scarf #1 FTW!

…and another look…

Who's a pretty scarfy scarf?

It’s my first real knitting project and I’m quite happy with how it turned out. I used 17 gauge bamboo knitting needles and one skein of lovely, variegated, chunky alpaca (I think) wool. The color is a weird, almost ugly combination of orange, magenta, purple and grey.

Mom bought me the yarn, some Addi turbo lace needles, and a copy of Debbie Stoller’s Stitch ‘n Bitch for my birthday when she and my aunt came out to visit. My aunt taught me to knit when she was here, but it took me a couple of weeks of practice making swatches on cheap acrylic yarn before I felt ready to move to the more expensive yarn. I didn’t follow a pattern, I just made a garter stitch (knit every row) and played with the width until it felt right.

It’s about 8″ wide, which is pretty wide for a scarf, and around 7′ long, which seems crazy, Dr. Who long. Regardless, I love it. We’ve had some really cold days here this year and it’s nice to have a soft woolen scarf to wrap around your head and neck like five times if need be.

Next up is my first foray into embroidery and cross stitch since I was a teeny tot.

untitled (lol) by Anna Hell

I apologize for the crap photos. I’ve had to resort to using my webcam until I buy another, big girl’s camera. Anyway, I started this project almost a year ago! I awoke from a feverish dream (or something) with the basics of this pattern in mind and I felt compelled to finish it…very slowly. It’s approximately 5×7 inches and it felt like it took me a google-illion hours to finish. The truth is prolly closer to 50 or 75 hours, but there are a lot of stitches in it. I’m pretty happy with it, but I feel like it’s more of a sketch/practice piece than anything real.

This is the doodle I started the other day…

pop heart sketch by Anna Hell

I have an idea for how I might use this later, but it really just started off as a fun diversion after I finished the bohemiath above. I know it sounds weird to take a break from needle work by doing some more needle work, but regular embroidery is way faster than cross stitch and it was nice to be able to sketch out something so fast. Like I said, this might be incorporated into a larger piece (8×11 or pillow size?), but I just started this…

Elizabeth's Grace Lace Beret

…and I should really finish it before I get distracted with five other projects, as is my nature. I’d also like to do a Blog, Sweet Blog title card and experiment with some “topographic” embroidery.

So, I’m happy to have finally finished a couple of projects, but only the heart thing and beret will count towards my viva la resolutions art things if I finish them this year. Wish me luck!

What projects are you guys in the middle of/planning to start?