FO: Starting The Degas Project

As you can probably guess (from my lack of posting anything else about it, lol), I did not win anything in last year's Mochimochi Land Photo Contest. It was my first try though, and to get honorable mention on my Letters To Santa photo I put together a week before the deadline is pretty cool in my book :) The whole competition experience though got my head in mochi photo mode. I had several ideas even during that week, but I had no time in which to execute them. Not this year! I'm planning ahead, and I'm making things mostly because I think they will be really cute, but if I can win something at the end of the year that would be nice too, lol. One of the first things I wanted to make happen involved lots of little ballerinas.

Anna Hrachovec has an adorable Tiny Ballerina pattern which I happen to have, and I made this little lady up in April. It's one of those things I've always thought was cute and wanted to make but never made the time. Flash to this year when I had the idea: try to recreate Degas ballerina paintings with knitted ballerinas! lol That will, obviously, take a lot more ballerinas then just one, but I wanted to make one to see exactly what I could accomplish as far as posing the little ladies.

I used Knit Picks Palette in Oyster Heather for her skin, and Golden Sun Bamboo in Nude Pink for her tutu and brown for her hair. I was unsure how the slick bamboo yarn would work for this project, but it was the best ballet pink sock weight yarn I had, so I gave it a try and I am pleased :)

Here's the back view. I had to lean her on an empty Gutterman thread spool to stand up, but it should also give you an idea of her tiny size :)

Since I was trying to copy a Degas painting that hangs above my bed, I gave her brown hair and tried to make the top of the tutu look like it was off the shoulder.

And look at her tiny feet! The only change I made was to make the skirt of the tutu with the knit side out (the pattern calls for the purl side, which would give more of a balloon to the skirt). I liked that it curved gently this way. It did make the skirt a bit longer, so I may have to take that into account next time.

Then I tried to pose her :) This was all done with pins and photoshop, but she does look like she's balancing, doesn't she? I may have to make future ones with longer arms if they need to touch above her head, etc. And obviously I need a better background then plain white (man was it difficult to get details with this stark situation).

So I made a ballerina :) I love how cute she is, and now that I have an idea of what I can do with posing her, I will be able to keep my Degas project going. You'll be seeing more of these little ladies in the future!