Finished project: La scapigliata

A while ago, I posted my in-progress pictures of la Scapigliata. Now I can finally say that after four years of starting and stopping this project, she's finally finished!! I just have to mount and frame her now and put her on the wall.

How did I do it? Obsessive cross stitching. I seriously lived and breathed this project for a whole month. I said that I wanted to finish her in June so I did it. Something just clicked in my head saying that it was time to finish her.

(detail of her flowing hair)

(detail of her hairline)

(detail of her face)

This project only took me four years but she's finally done. If I had spent more time on this instead of constantly doing a section and putting it aside she would have been done in six months.

***Update 04/08/2012***

Sorry, I forgot to mention that this is not a pattern that I created nor do I claim ownership of it. The pattern was published in Cross Stitch Collection magazine, issue 160 (August 2008), pages 32-35. It was designed by Maria Diaz.

Embroidered Felt Gift tags

This was a great idea that I had to use up leftover felt from my Felt Gift Bags. These are green, reusable gift tags that I can embroider and monogram with the recipient's initials and then use it every year. I can ever color-code the embroidery floss by person (pink for mom, green for dad, purple for myself, etc.). What a great idea!

For this project, I needed strips of leftover felt (cream felt is best), embroidery floss in colors of choice, an embroidery needle, a hole punch and scissors.

To start, I needed tags. So, I took the scraps of leftover felt and cut a tag for a template, about 1.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches high. I simply took a scrap, folded it over and cut to those dimensions.

Once I had the first tags cut out, I used them as templates and cut out more to those dimensions.

Once I had a stack of tags, I had to give them a hole. I took a single hole punch, positioned it and punched a hole. It took a lot of strength (and it did hurt my hand) but I did make a hole. For a few of them, the punch didn't go through all of the way so I used scissors to cut the hole out.

Now that I had some tags with a hole, I got out the embroidery floss and a needle. I cut a length of floss and split it into three threads (it is usually wound with six).

I did a running stitch border around the edge with the embroidery floss and around the punched hole. I now have tags that look like this:

The back looks like this:

I didn't monogram these yet but I think that I will with the first initial of the recipient. I think that I will also color-code these so that each person has their favorite color. I can pick whatever style alphabet that I want for the letters and I am thinking of a nice, modern font.

Estimated time for this project: about 30 minutes for one. It doesn't take long to cut these out, but hole punching can be hard. The actual embroidery took about 20 minutes as I didn't do a quick running stitch -- it looked sloppy. I took the time to put the needle in and out.

Notes:

• I did the embroidery around the hole punch in the beginning as a detour then continued around the edges again. You can see that in the above picture. 

 Ideas:

• You can do this in your Christmas colors instead of color-coding it. 
• This would look excellent with a darker felt and lighter embroidery floss. 
• This is a fabulous idea for using up leftover pieces of felt. You can do it in any color with white embroidery floss.

Using up leftover yarn

After all of those knitting projects, what do you do with the leftover yarn? I have been pondering this question for some time as I don't want to have small bits of yarn taking up space. So, I researched all of the possible ways that I could use up this yarn to get it out of the way.

The first place to look though is one of the One-Skein Wonders books.There are also some fabulous ideas on Ravelry and Knitting Pattern Central.

15 Projects (knit or crochet):

1. Reusable makeup remover pads or crocheted face pads. 
2. Dish scrubbers (or this one) or crocheted tawashis.
3. Dishcloths. Seriously, just visit this website and try them all. 
4. Bath puff.
5. Glasses case. Do a rib around the top to keep it closed.
6. Pencil case. Sew on a zipper or make buttonholes to close it.
7. Adult or child headband or ear warmer.
8. Ipod, phone or Blackberry sock.
9. Try knitted or crochet jewellery. 
10. Use it to test stitch swatches or gauge.
11. Make a sachet for smaller items.
12. Make shapes like hearts, flowers or squares. 
13. A coffee cup sleeve or mug sleeve.
14. Strips for a leftover blanket. Knit long strips for a blanket in all of the leftover yarn then use a matching colour to piece it together.
15. Belt for kids or adults! 

10 Other ideas:

1. If you have wool, try felted wool balls.
2. Use it as scrap yarn to hold stitches.
3. Use it as scrap yarn to sew up projects where the seam will not be visible.
4. Use it to embroider a small design (heart, flower, basketball, initials, etc.) on clothing or accessories, for example, a shoe on a fabric shoe bag. Or, to embroider the edges of pillowcases or other household items in a straight stitch to add a little bit of detail.
5. Use it to do a blanket stitch on the edges of a fleece blanket.
6. Use it as ribbon to wrap up Xmas presents.
7. Use it to create a crocheted neckline on a shirt.
8. Wrap the yarn around wooden or styrofoam letters to spell words on the wall like this project on homemade by Jill.  
9. Yarn wigs for dolls, kids or adults.
10. Pom poms. What about a pom pom garland?