Felting for fun

I spent the morning with some first graders at my son's school teaching them to make felt pictures. Since I couldn't take pictures there, I took photographs of my practice felting. Basically, I used the instructions for making flat felt in a plastic bag from “The Art of Feltmaking” by Anne Einset Vickrey.

I brought all kinds of fleece to choose from - colored scraps as well as natural colors.

Here I laid out a fleece picture on a small piece of bubble wrap - kind of like a tray to work on. I cut the bubble wrap to fit inside a ziplock bag. After the picture was ready, I slid it inside the bag. After I added some hot water and a squirt of dish soap, I zipped it up and massaged it until it felted. Here's where the bubble wrap helps with the felting process!

Emptying the cooling water and switching back and forth between cold and hot water made this take longer. I only added hot and cold water twice for the kids - I was trying to keep down the spilling! 

I did let them rub their bags of felt on a wash board to help it felt more quickly. What was funny is that they (mostly) didn't know what a wash board was!

At home, I made three sheets of flat felt as examples.

One I framed as a picture, one I made into a card and one I cut and beaded and turned into a flower pin.

Each child took home a sheet of felt in a bag and the instructions for how to rinse and dry it. It was quite fun - I think you could do this as a craft at a birthday party.  If you do, let me know how it turns out!

Would it be greedy?

If I left this out for Santa on Christmas Eve? First of the set done - second one started.

Are you enjoying the snow?

Sunday - it's the new Saturday.

Yeah, I'm about a day behind on everything. I've been making fleece mittens for my church's Mitten Tree project - this week it's pink and next week is green - but I needed to take a picture before the final two pairs were finished. So, I tossed in two pairs I purchased from Kohl's (big, big sale there - about $2 per pair!) to make a complete Saturday Seven. On the side, I'm knitting a scarf and a pair of felted slippers. I've still got another pair of felted slippers (a small pair, thank goodness) and two pairs of fingerless gloves to go.

Luckily, I attended the No Coast Craft-o-Rama yesterday with GFMelissa and took care of a few Christmas presents. Love that show!

Today, it was decorating a Jesse Tree with the under-first-graders at my church and a Christmas choral concert at my daughters' school. Whew. I am looking forward to a little sitting down time right now.

Just a little something - something

So, today I finally finished the stem on my Giant Felted Mistake of a Pumpkin. The sad part was that I had to beg Good Friend Melissa to give me her left-over bits of green yarn as I didn't have any. She (Also known as "Muy Great Stasher of Cascade 220") had the tab/butt ends of three different green yarns on hand and I used Knit Picks Yarn of the Andes in Evergreen. Now, I just need to knit the leaves and twirly vine (I need to get out some different needles) and I'll be done.

Unfortuntely, I don't have a top loading washing machine any more so I'll have to visit my local laundremat to get it felted.

Tonight, I took the Lousy Pink Sock to the MN Knitters' Guild meeting. It got a little air before I was lost in the Maggie Jackson designs shown in the fall fashion show. My sister (the one with the baggy 1824 seater) has expressed interest in "a little something" for her cold shoulders and I think the Maggi Knits might just have the answer.



And I bought "Romantic Knits" by Annie Modesitt. I think they might be a little too young for me but I expect to change my mind after some bedtime reading.

Oh and Sunday's results?

Bib number: 509
age: 42
gender: F
location: Saint Paul, MN
overall place: 350 out of 400
division place: 20 out of 25
gender place: 161 out of 197
time: 1:43:40
swim: 17:33
trn1: 3:42
bike: 46:15
trn2: 2:16
run: 33:56

So I ran faster but biked slower. Hopefully, I beat the 80 yr. old man. He's the Twin Cities triathlon standby - anouncers like to mention him when he's racing. Unfortunately, once, I came in right behind him. Now, we are in waves and I probably started after him BUT . . . I can only hope he doesn't knit socks.

Grab your coat and get your hat . . . 2.0

“Live your life, do your work, then take your hat”
- Henry David Thoreau


Here's the final version - Hat 2.0 if you will. I remade Middle Daughter's hat last night. About 10 p.m. I had a cup of what I thought was herbal tea. Big mistake - I was unable to get to sleep until 2 a.m., Something wasn't caffeine free. So, I merrily knitted away, watching the Grammy awards and various other taped television programs. Right now, however, I am paying the price for all that knitting.

For the hat, I simply cast on 80 stitches and knit 1 and 1/2 inches of k1/p1 ribbing. After one round of stockinette stitch, I found some easy-to-duplicate-in-two-color Fair Isle patterns with 20 stitch repeats. After a few patterns, I put in a stockinette decrease round. Then I switched to 16 stitch repeat patterns until the whole hat was as long as my hand (kudos to Stephanie Purl-McPhee for that tidbit of measuring knowledge!) and began decreasing ever other round. The tassel was an afterthought requested by Middle Daughter.

Once again, I turned to Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting for pattern ideas. I bought this book on deep discount and just love it. It is such a resource for patterns and color ideas. I just wish I could afford her book on Aran knitting!




Although I ran the them throught the wash again, the Mad River mittens didn't get much smaller.

Here's another look at them and the hat. All in all, a fun and quick project. Now, I really need to get working on those sock miles!

If at first you don't succeed . . .

I decided to throw together a hat out of my old homespun yarn to match the Mad River Mittens. Here is a look at Hat #1. After trying the hat on, my daughter decided she didn't want the folded brim. I didn't like the solid feel of this pattern, either. So, tonight, after a trip to OUR BIG MALL (what my Youngest Child calls the Mall of America) to restock after the winter sales, I rip it back to the ribbing. I think I am going to break up the patterns into segments separated with bands of cream. That way, I can incorporate decreases within the hat body without interfering with the patterns. A very traditional style of "make your own" hat. It's knitting up at about 4-5 stitches per inch - a little chunky because it was some of my very first hand spun yarn. My late mother-in-law gave me a whole fleece when I first started spinning but she never told me what breed of sheep it came from. Nothing too fine but quite usable.

And, while Middle Daughter claims she likes the larger Mad River Mittens (she can wear her Sponge Bob stretchy liners underneath), I think I am going to throw them into pillowcases for one last trip through the washer.



My, Grandmother, what great hands you have!