Embroidered Cover #2

I don't know if you're all familiar with Persephone Books.  They're the ones that re-published Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, the basis for the movie with Amy Adams and Frances McDormand (which I loved, book and movie).  They publish out of print books by mainly female writers; they're nearly all published with just a plain dove grey cover (their Persephone Classics get an artsy cover).  Everything I've read through them I've loved in one way or another.  Miss Pettigrew was wonderful and light and fun, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Stratchey was wonderful but a bit heart-breaking, and so on.  The one that's stuck with me the most was Manja by Anna Gmeyner, book no. 39.

From their website, "Written in London by a young Austrian playwright in exile, Manja opens, radically, with five conception scenes one night in 1920. Set in the turbulent Germany of the Weimar Republic, it goes on, equally dramatically, to describe the lives of the children and their families until 1933 when the Nazis came to power. 'What is so unusual,' wrote the playwright Berthold Viertel in 1938, 'is the way the novel contrasts the children's community - in all its idealism, romanticism, decency and enchantment - with the madhouse community of the adults.'"  This book is quite long - over 500 pages - but reads so well.  You go between all the children at various points and see how their lives all connect and intersect and how they're all tied together.  It's also amazing in that it was written before World War II started, yet shows the horror of the Nazis already.  It's a beautiful book, but terribly sad too.  I read it in 2010 and still think about it.  I really highly recommend it.

Because of all of this, Manja was the next book I made a cover for for the contest mentioned previously.  I loved doing the cover and since the book has the dove grey cover it left it completely up to me.  This is what I came up with:

"She wanted to leave a sign behind for her friends, when they came here a little while later.  She couldn't find anything suitable.  In the end she took out her scarf and tied it round the birch tree.  It looked sad and stupid.  But she left it."  -p. 520

While it's not a birch tree, I love this tree and loved layering each branch over others.  It was challenging but rewarding.  I love this.  It's perfect for the book.

New Things

We have a new kitty!  We got her exactly one month ago today, and she was about 6 weeks old when we got her.  Her name's Curious George Eliot and she's absolutely wonderful and crazy and a pain in the butt.  I adore her.  This was her on day one:

 And these are her yesterday:

 She's grown so much.  She's not that little fluff ball we adopted anymore.  She's getting all sleek and shiny and already seems so big.  She's such a crazy little thing too though.  She bounces off every surface and attacks the carpet or a bit of fuzz.  She chases her tail and jumps and flips.  When she's been in her cage for the night or when we're not home and she's let out again, she'll follow you everywhere.  Sometimes I think she's afraid of her own shadow.  She's wonderful.  Oh George. :)

I'm participating in Feeling Stitchy's contest for embroidered book covers.  It's inspired by Penguin's new book covers for Emma, The Secret Garden, and Black Beauty.  So far I've done this one from Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies:

I'm really proud of this.  I actually had traced this cover weeks ago because I think it's just an awesome cover, and then there's this contest that ties in perfectly.  I'm definitely a book person though, so it's not such a stretch for me. :)  I tried to use a bunch of different stitches, and it's *all* stitched.  The hair is raised stem stitch, the jewellery and top of the dress is satin stitch, the skin and bottom of the skirt are chain stitch.  The black around the jewellery and in the picture is all back stitch and the whole thing is outlined in stem stitch.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  It's really cool. :)  I have a few more ideas ready to go that will have bits of applique and stitching combined.  Hopefully they'll turn out as well as this one.

Long time no see

So it's been a while.  It hasn't been terribly exciting here lately overall.  Though, my awful roommate moved out and my fiance moved in. :)  The apartment's definitely more cozy when you don't have to worry about running into the other person, and there's more stuff and it's just friendlier feeling in general.  It's awesome. :)  Though, we've been wedding planning, going back and forth between a fairly big, regular wedding and basically just eloping.  We're going to have the regular, nice wedding and hope that being near Christmas not so many people will come (my issue with the regular wedding is how big it was getting).  We've got the church and photographer and are about to send out save the dates (which I know are, like, months late...), and I have my dress.  That's it.  This is way more complicated and stressful than I wanted.  I just want to marry him, I don't want all this fuss, lol!

I haven't been terribly productive lately.  I haven't knit really at all lately.  I've been cross stitching again lately, and embroidering - which I love because I can whip things out in a day or so depending on size.  One of the embroideries was a gift that was just given so I couldn't share until now. :)

The gift for my wonderful friend, Mandy, and her new husband, Steve:

 This I made because I loved the text of it (found here on flickr) and wanted to keep embroidering things.  It's the author's note to Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh:

 A close up of the stem stitch outline:

 Not completely done yet (I still have to wash it), but I just loved this t-shirt on Cafe Press or something and wanted to do the illustration:

 And last but definitely not least me and the gorgeous bride from this past weekend, and then a wonderful one of her in the mirror :) :

Congrats again to Mandy and Steve! :)

Finally Finished - Monk Travel Satchel

So I began this bag in October 2007 (according to the rav page for it). I finished it yesterday. *hangs head in shame* Almost four years... At least it's done now. In a way I'm glad I waited to finish it, because if I'd tried to finish it before I wouldn't've known how to do some of the finishing details and it wouldn't've turned out so well I think. I had all the pieces sitting around for years; the finishing was my foil.Even knowing ~4 years more about knitting/crocheting, some of it was still a pain. Picking up all those stitches around the edge to do in the yellow was a pain in the butt, but I did it pretty well. Slip-stitch crocheting the front and back to the strap was a pain, but turned out excellent. I still can't measure worth crap apparently- the inside pocket's not at all centered, lol. I also didn't have anymore of the green so the seed stitch on the bag front is in yellow, and I had to use yellow to attach the back pocket. I also sl-st the back pocket on and did a sl-st line across at the top as well to keep it the same around. ...But I love my bag. :)

It's not quite the same as the pattern. I blame this on not caring about gauge, or only semi-caring, when I started. My bag is not as wide as it ought to be and is much taller (though technically it's not taller, but because it's narrower it seems taller. The height measurement is right, the width is not). The strap pockets, therefore, sit higher on the bag than they ought to; they're flush with the top of the bag rather than two inches down the sides. This doesn't bug me though, they're good where they are.

I changed the I-cord color, they were supposed to be in the yellow. But I really like the brown and wanted more brown on the front, so, brown I-cords. :) I also felt the front was a bit plain looking so I found a Michigan outline online and traced it and rigged up a piece of paper to the bottom right front and embroidered a Michigan on the front in brown. This is my favorite part of the bag actually. I've forgotten how much I enjoy embroidering (and cross stitching)! I want to embroider everything now! lol :)

Rav page: Michigan Bag

Anne-Girl

“That Anne-girl improves all the time … I get tired of other girls - there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne has as many shades as a rainbow…” ~Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Since I'm getting tired of having all socks from patterns I try lately to be annoying and not fit or be a pain to make or... whatever else, I've decided to create my own pattern. Based on the colors of the yarn, these are my Anne-Girl Socks. :) I got this yarn and originally wanted to do something fall-like, but nothing was coming to mind. Looking at the yarn more and more made me think of poor Anne Shirley and her failed attempt to dye her hair raven black. It’s not quite as green as her hair might’ve been, but I know how my hair looked when it was green and it was more brownish. The pattern has a large braid in the middle, flanked by two small braids and a small twist on each side. Of course there had to be Anne’s braids! :) So these are my “Anne-girl” socks (god forbid if I called them “carrots”!). This is the first pattern I’ve created. We’ll see how they go as they progress. If I can get them done well enough maybe there’ll be a pattern to follow. :)

The chart of the cable. In case my written directions aren't clear, I made this too. (Granted I know what my written pattern means, but if I ever post the pattern I wanted this too...)

My attempts at creating a pattern. You can't read it all here, but it took quite a lot of figuring out and a few attempts at test knitting (on the leftover yarn from Skew) before I was confident enough to actually use the orange yarn.

Stupid socks

So Nutkin's turning out a bust so far too. And I was liking it so much! I turned the heel this morning and decided to try it on (because I'm crazy like that). I can't get the damn thing over my heel! :( So I'm going to see if they fit Mom, cuz she has small feet (that's gotta equal small heels, right?), and maybe she can have them. Otherwise I have to frog yet another pair. Stupid socks... I love socks so much, why do they not want me to knit them lately...?

Summer daze...

I've been out of school for a few weeks now. I did pretty well, though not as well as I'd hoped. Best thing was that my The Birth of a Nation paper wound up really well, I got an A in the class, and it's been submitted for one of my graduation requirements without further revisions! :) Now I'm just trying to find a job, to no luck. (If you give me an application, or say you're hiring, and then I call a few days later and you say you're not hiring, I hate you. Don't tease me like that.) If nothing else I'm planning on trying to tutor, but I'm having issues setting that up. We'll see. Right now I'm just pinching pennies and stressing out and being a bum in the apartment all day. On the plus side I've been super productive otherwise, lol. I've finished 6 books since I've been out of school. I've re-read The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. I've also read The Secret History of Giants by Ari Berk, Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, and The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I'm currently reading Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin by Marion Meade. I also listened to The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde and am currently listening to The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. Next I'll move onto the next Thursday Next book, The Well of Lost Plots, and either The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan or The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford. We'll see. :) I love being able to read again for pleasure. I'm tired of analyzing and dissecting every book I've been reading since August, so it's definitely a nice break. Yesterday Josh and I went to the park, despite the gloomy weather, and sat and read for a few hours. It was chilly and overcast, but didn't rain and it was nice just being able to sit outside and read together. I was still working on The Lost Hero at that point and it was just really calming and nice. Unfortunately I had a headache (as per usual) which distracted from the reading enjoyment, but I still couldn't have asked for a better few hours. As well, I've finished my skew socks. I started two other pairs but didn't like them at all (one the pattern was super confusing to my stupid brain... the other I didn't like the yarn, which I will have to work through eventually, but not now), so frogged them. I've started a third pair now and just love them. It's Nutkin, and I really like the yarn choice I'm using. 2 Skew photos and a Nutkin. :)