Knitting

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Michigan Artist Knits a Safe House

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safe house knit installationLife has not been easy for artist and knitter Annie Eckrich. After her parents divorced and her mom stopped receiving child support, the family’s home was foreclosed on when she was 16. They spent some time floating from place to place, even living in their car sometimes.

She developed an eating disorder, and her mom taught her to knit to cope with all that was going on.

Now 22, she’s health and a recent graduate of Kalamazoo College, with a major in art and art history. She’s still knitting and recently completed “Safe House,” a 9.5 foot square, 13 foot tall structure made of knitting and complete with a knit couch, knit mailbox and baskets of wool roving for decor.

The piece has been installed — with Annie inside it — at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts, where it is part of the ArtPrize competition, the winner of which will receive $20,000.

This is a great story about the power of art and knitting and we wish Annie luck!

[Photo by Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood via MLive.com.]

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Comments

  1. $200,000!! I sure hope she gets it. I love it, and her story is touching. I think she could make and sell these things.

  2. I hope she wins! I wonder if she has thought of taking pictures of just the wall knitting for wall paper. I would love to have a knitted wall paper!

Have you read?

Practice Colorwork on a Cute Knit Bunny

Sometimes I feel like knitters get intimidated to try new things because they think they need to start with a big project. Your first time working in the round doesn’t need to be a sock, and your first colorwork doesn’t need to be a sweater, for example. You can find little projects that use the skills you want to learn to build your confidence before you move on to something that requires more time commitment.

This adorable knit bunny, for example.

The colorwork bunny from Knit Picks was designed by Amy Munson and is a kind of bowling pin shaped bunny complete with a knit hat, contrasting inner ears and a little stranded colorwork on its body. Note that the ears are attached the the hat not the bunny, but you could stitch them to the bunny if you’d rather.

It’s worked from the bottom up and also has a tiny pompom tail you can’t see in the picture but it’s a really cute touch. There are a variety of little fair isle patterns to choose from to make the best bunny for you.

The bunny comes out about 8 inches tall (or just over 20 cm) and use several colors to complete the colorwork, depending on the design you choose.

You can purchase the pattern by itself from Knit Picks, or make a kit that includes sport weight yarn in all the colors you need for your creation. There are gray and brown options for the main body of the bunny, but of course if you’re using your own yarn you can make it whatever color you like.

Once you’ve tried colorwork (maybe also working in the round and shaping if those are skills you haven’t used before) in a little project like this you’ll be ready to take on something bigger in no time.

Check out the pattern on Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks]