11/3/2005
I’m almost ashamed to post this photo. This basket has been done for about a week now. It is hideously misshapen and even kind of crinkled. But, I decided to show it anyway as there is a lesson in it…
I have a front loading washing machine. I put up felting anything for nearly a year because I was afraid it wouldn’t felt. However, I found the key was to up the water temp a bit with a couple pots of boiling water as I kept re-running the wash cycles. When I felted this I didn’t babysit the washer as much as I should have. Instead, I multi-tasked with printmaking while it went through the wash cycles. I kept the laundry room door open and I wasn’t that far away, but I got a little caught up in the printing process and stopped giving any thought to the washing machine. The next thing I knew I heard the washing start spinning. I heard it right away and figured it wasn’t a big deal as it had only just started so I’d go stop it and pull the basket out and let the jeans finish the spin. Well, I discovered that my front loader locks once it gets into the spin cycle and doesn’t unlock - even when you turn it off. So, this basket when through several wash cycles and then the rinse and spins as well. It ended up with several creases from the spinning and rinsing that no amount of tugging could get rid of.
DH keeps saying he likes it and he thinks SIL1 will as well. But, I’m kind of ashamed of it. I kind of think he says he likes it because he doesn’t want me to get overstressed about holiday “to dos.” It also ended up flaring more than I was going for. So, I have three more skeins of this yarn in this color and I’m thinking of giving it another go and keeping a better eye on it. Perhaps even moving a chair into the laundry room so I’m not tempted to get sucked into something that will divert my attention away from the felting process.
This colors kind of goes with our bathroom so I’m thinking of perhaps using it in there to hold extra rolls of TP. I don’t think it’s “rustic” quality will bother me so much in there. But, it isn’t living room quality in my mind.
For my own reference (as it will likely be at least a few weeks before I give this another shot) CO 38 sts…
Emma is wanting to say hi and complain that her mommy took up all the throw rugs in the house and she has no soft place to lay…
10/28/2005
I’m taking a page from Melanie as far as holiday knitting goes. Well, sorta. These were all in the queue before this post was made, but her post kind of spurred me on…
The big green thing is what I hope will be a slightly fluted rectangular felt basket with perhaps a slight turn over at the top. That said, I just flew by the seat of my pants on it without doing any swatch felting. But, I figured it isn’t a high science sort of thing. It’s three skeins of Lamb’s Pride Worsted knit doubled. If it turns out I’ll fine tune and write up a pattern probably. I’m hoping it will be roughly the right size for holding holiday cards as they arrive, but it isn’t for me. If it turns out as planned upon felting it will also be acting as a gift basket for one of the recipents of DH’s homemade cheese and liqueurs. See, I just designed the labels and occassionally had to remove the cheese from the brine and put it into the cheese fridge. But, other than that I’ve had no hand in it. So for family at least I want to contribute something handmade as well.
On the right, the peacock and brown huge thing is a single soled Fiber Trends Clog in the pre-felted state. I put one of my size 9 shoes in the shot for scale. Look how huge that slipper is! LOL! I can actually stick it on my head with my face peaking out the area for the seam in the middle of the sole. It would almost make a really cute hat/hood thing if it weren’t for the nipple-like toe sticking up out of your head, LOL! (okay, I come from a wierd family where we try a lot of things on our head if it looks like it’ll fit - sue me!)
I have the other sole completed and on the needle up at the top. But, I haven’t decided if I want to attach that one or just do the top part of the second one and do the soles later. See, the soles are definitely NOT television or movie watching WIPs with all the short rows and such in there. But, part of me wants to finish one and felt it and make sure I made the right size. See, my sister has size 11 feet, so I made the man’s medium, but I’ve since seen at least one post about this pattern with Lamb’s Pride and the need to go down a size on the pattern. But, won’t the clogs match better if they are felted together? And, if I did do the wrong size, what am I going to do with only one?? It would be foolish.
Oh, and the observant out there will notice that the sole on the needles is not attached to a double worsted yarn, but is instead being knit from a bulky yarn. I’m tempting fate here. I didn’t swatch and felt yet again and made a somewhat drastic yarn substitution. So, I may have two strikes against me on this one. That said, those two parts were both knit last Saturday. So, it isn’t like I’m thowing out a ton of time if things don’t work out.
The LYS didn’t have any brown Lamb’s Pride and that is pretty much their only worsted weight felting priced yarn so I went with this. It’s Patons some or other and is 100% wool. I don’t trust Knit Pick’s colors online or in thier catalog enough to pick out the proper turqoise/teal/peacock color I know my sister will like and I knew Persian Peacock or whatever it is called from Brown Sheep was going to be perfect. But, I think I shall be placing my first order with Knit Picks next week and will be sure to include a Wool of the Andes color card in that order in case I need to knit another pair of felted clogs for her. I’m a Knit Picks virgin, can you believe that???? Shocking, isn’t it????
I hope everyone has safe and enjoyable Halloween festivities this weekend!
