Creative Output



My loom in my studio!

Last year I posted about my studio. Since then, we’ve moved, and with the move came a new studio. This one is a little nook in our apartment. As much fun as it was to say, "I'm going over to the studio," the actual act of going to the studio was sometimes a work deterrent, so it is lovely to have a whole studio at home.  

Anyway, picture posts are fun, right? Wanna see what I've been doing?

Knitting
I don't really do New Year's resolutions, but I swear to golly that 2014 is the year that I'm going to finish the mitred square blanket that I started in, like, 2007.

For the blanket you knit a bunch (in my case, 80) of little squares, sew them into 2x2 squares, and then sew those into a blanket. This is but a representation of what I've done so far.

3 of the 20 needed 2x2 squares. I've sewn 5.

Oh, it will be so lovely when it is finished. Psychologically, I mean. Hopefully it will also look lovely, but I'm really just trying to free myself here.

I wasn't going to start any new knitting until I had finished knitting the little squares (I'm on #72), but I couldn't resist Ysolda Teague's mystery knit-along (where you get the pattern in dribs and drabs without knowing what the end product will look like). It starts Monday, and I am so so super-psyched that I can't use big girl words about it.

Weaving
Here's a picture of the dish towels I finished in November:

Dish towels! Fresh off the loom, so they're a bit wonky.

 

Here's a close-up picture of a scarf I made last year whose pattern makes me happy:

Waffly scarf! So warm.

I haven’t started a new project. Why not? Because...
 

Stitching

Hey, I know what I need! A new hobby to take up my already limited spare time. How about handstitching? Don't mind if I do!

I started with an embroidery kit from Sublime Stitching, but stitching patterns on towel after towel seemed kind of silly, and it was hard to find other embroidery targets.
 

So, after some soul-searching to make sure I was invested enough to invest in it, I bought an Alabama Chanin kit:
 

Lots and lots of teeny stitches

 

That’s my progress as of a few weeks ago. I'm not too much further along, because I've started sewing the blanket squares, and I also have to go to my job sometimes. But, oh my god, I can’t even explain to you how very much I love this, much less why. It is repetitious and fiddly and I can’t read or watch tv while I do it. But love it I do. I love putting little stitches into my fabric. Teeny little stitches added one by one. It's like mindfulness training, which, when you factor in the fact that I'll end up with a skirt, makes it a very good investment indeed.

And that's what I've got right now. Three hobbies, lots of projects. Now all I need is more time to focus on them. (And a better camera to document them.)