Felting Fever

Today I am wacked, as yesterday I felted. It felt like I was dashing too and from the garage, where we keep the washing machine, all day. Whilst keeping a huge stack of felting to be done in one go, feels like a way to minimise on work, it still felt pretty exhausting, probably because I have a front loading washing machine. After all the work I did yesterday, the house smells of wet wool, as the miasma rose from all the radiators over night, but today I had finished felted items ready for photography. So here are the finished/nearly finished items.

Inaugural Gloves



These gloves were huge before felting. I was very nervous about wrecking these gloves because they took so much effort to make, but after several weeks of NOT wearing them because they were too big, I decided it was worth the risk. I felted at 30 degrees for a total of about 30 minutes, inside a pillowcase, so they weren't too heavily felted and I think it worked. The gloves are less floppy, and feel much sturdier and warmer. So I believe this was a success and I have already worn them out the house, with pride.


Citron the Kitty Swap Cat

Citron has been named after the french for Lime, which is the colour of the wool. I believe that she has gallic charm about her, hence her name.



I am particularly proud of the little heart bead that I found, as a symbol for Valentine's day which is smack dab in the middle of this month.



I made the tail from Elizabeth Jarvis' Swapsie Cat pattern, and I think it goes brilliantly with this cat.



All in all I am very pleased with this little kitty and I think the felting really helped finish it off.

Chilko Slippers

These slippers are made from the Brigantia Needlework aran I got delivered recently, and they felted fabulously. They took quite a few washes, but that might have been because I started them at 30 degrees for the the more delicate items. When the delicate items were done, I upped the temperature to 40 degrees and ran it for another 20 minutes are so and they were perfect!



These slippers are a perfect fit, and the felt is gorgeously thick and springy. I will definitely be using this wool again, as it was a real bargain and the colourways it is available in are great. They also have DK weight. The yarn, before felting, is lovely to knit with, as it is soft and smooth and I would use it for un-felted projects as well. All in all, a successful project. I may add embellishments at some point, but I think it is unlikely unless I find myself being inspired with needle felting in the future.

I also felted the other project I made with my Brigantia Aran. I have christened this my Sushi Bag, you may be able to see why.



The "chopsticks" are dowels I intend to use as handles, after I have sanded them down. This is the general idea for the bag.



I just winged the pattern, as I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to produce. I only ripped it back once, when I realised I didn't have enough yarn for the shape I wanted. I may try the original idea I had in the future, but with more yarn.

I will almost definitely be adding decoration to this bag, as it is intended to be an evening bag. I have some nice silver beads and sequins to add and I may try some needle felting designs as well. I don't know when I will get round to doing it, probably not until I have an occasion coming up to use it for, but you never know, I might get inspired.

So there you go, all my felting listed for your delectation. Well almost all, I also re-felted my other slippers that had got floppy, but you don't need to see photos of them!

Inauguration Knitting

I have come to the conclusion after reading Facebook, Twitter and Ravelry yesterday that there was much knitting being done while President Obama was being inaugurated. I assume this was a combination of knitters always knitting when given the opportunity, and the inspiration of all the knitted accessories on display during the ceremonies. In honour of the day in question, I have re-named my angora gloves Inaugural Gloves, as they were finished off during all the tv coverage.

I was inspired by the new President's speech and hope that he can live up to, just a part of, what everyone expects of him. As a Brit, I had no part to play in electing this charismatic man, but I am impressed that the American public chose to follow a path of hope in troubling times. So often, reports on global politics are sad and troubling, but for once there was much happiness and optimism on the news. Inauguration Day was really an extraordinary moment in history and I look forward to seeing what happens next. Now, away from the politics of yesterday, and back to the knitting!



These gloves are so warm and fluffy, they feel like I am wearing nothing but warm air around my fingers. However, the gloves are a little large. This is because the pattern called for fingering weight yarn and I used double knit and didn't really allow for the difference. I think if I was to do gloves again, I would use this concept but work out my own pattern according to the gauge.



I don't know whether to try and "rescue" this project by felting them to shrink them to the correct size or not. They seem to stay on my hands alright, and they keep my hands warm, so I don't know if I should mess with them or not. I have a spare finger (I don't know how this happened, but it did) which I will try to hand felt to see how much it shrinks and how the appearance will differ. I think felting the angora will reduce the fuzziness, which I don't know if I will like. But, that is why we test felt, no? I will post a before and after picture after I've tried it out.

As well as watching tv, I was at college yesterday, and we were introduced to flaps and ridges.



I am really enjoying learning about new textural theories. Hopefully, I will have an occasion to use my new knowledge soon. I think we are going to be given a new project to practice our nascent skills on, in the near future.

In the meantime I am knitting more blanket squares.

Gloves, Scarf and Wool Winding

This week I received my much anticipated Wool Winder from Texere Yarns. I have been postponing the purchase of this item for ages. I have always had something else to spend money on, usually yarn. I decided that I needed to get the huge cones of yarn, I purchased over the summer, wound so I could actually start knitting with it.



These are the two cones I bought, AFTER winding 7 balls worth of yarn. Each cone is made from a single ply of wool, so I have wound a strand from each cone into each ball to make them 2-ply. I also wound my Louisa Harding Grace Silk and Wool, from the skeins into balls. I really want to knit with this yarn and I knew I wouldn't be able to use it, until it was wound into balls. I did a couple of other balls as well. Here is a a picture of all I wound. As you can see I really got into the groove!



I hope to get much use out of my lovely little winder, now I have invested in it.



Yesterday was at my weekly visit to Mary Clare, for the knitting group. As predicted, my friend encouraged me to purchase the Kidsilk Haze, in order to knit the scarf for college. She is SUCH a bad influence. I have been able to justify my purchase to myself by mentally labelling this scarf as Christmas 2009 knitting. This way I kill three birds with one stone.

1. I get to knit with very pretty yarn.
2. I knit a college project
3. I get a really really big head start on my Christmas knitting.

This scarf has been much fun to knit so far. I have been gazing longingly at this particular colour since I started going into Mary Clare. I'm sure someone in my huge list of present recipients will like this.



The stitch pattern is really simple;

Row 1: K
Row 2: P
Row 3: K1, (Sl 1, K3, PSSO) repeat until one stitch left, K1
Row 4: P1, (P3, YO) repeat until one stitch left, P1



After a few rows I didn't have to think very much, and the scarf grew very quickly. We are meant to be putting a frill round the outside next week in the class. Part of me wishes we could leave it simple, like this, but the finished item we were shown looked nice as well.

After getting up to the length of scarf required for my homework, I thought I'd have another crack at my angora gloves. I have been knitting odd digits in between other projects and have now finished them all. I have even joined up all the fingers of one hand and knitted down to the start of the thumb gusset. Its very exciting to be able to put the fingers on my hand and see how snuggly and warm these gloves are going to be, when they are finished.



Hopefully I will be able to post more updated pictures after the weekend, when more progress has been made. Phew, another very full day of yarn related activities.

Knitting Recipes

I have started to work on my angora gloves using the i-cord fingers recipe given by Nona Knits. I am really amazed at how simple the principles of knitting a finger are. I started last night and I already have three fingers.



I have labelled the fingers, as recommended by Nona. I can see the point in marking each finger as it is bound to get confusing. I have also seen on the Ravelry Pattern Page that several people have lost their fingers before knitting up the gloves, so I have made sure that they are put safely away in a project bag, with the yarn. I don't to have to knit the gloves twice.

I was right about the yumminess of this yarn. Already the gloves are feeling so soft and snuggly, that I know when they are finished, the gloves will feel amazing. I love the fact that there will be no seams on the fingers. So far this recipe seems to be working out just fine.

With the success of one recipe, I thought I would try another recipe. A few months ago, I started to cast on some socks based on a set of instructions. These socks got abandoned despite my initial good intentions. I have no excuse other than the overwhelming amount of gorgeous yarn I got my mitts on. I frogged the socks and put them on hold. I have now dug out the very first yarn I bought online, and tried again with the instructions. These socks will be more winter appropriate than the ones I frogged as the yarn in nice and thick. These socks will also be plain and simple stocking stitch so I can gauge whether these instructions work. I have swatched up the yarn, and decided that as my foot and ankle do not match, unlike the instructions, I am going to have to jiggle the pattern a little.

I started with a 3mm circular needle and cast on 70 stitches. I then knit 1x1 ribbing for 1.5". Then on the next round I carried on ribbing for 15 stitches and then 3Ptog. I did this another 3 times, which reduced my stitch count down to 58. This reduction is fairly invisible in the ribbing. I have coloured the 3Ptog on this photo. The smaller amount of stitches is at the top of the photo.



After the reduction, I ribbed another 0.5"and then started to knit all the stitches. This has now brought the measurements being used, at the ankle, in line with those laid out in the pattern, i.e. the same width as my foot, less 0.75". I am hoping that the rest of the pattern will work out without any more jiggling. This is what I have so far.

.

Once I have done the whole sock I will type up the pattern and keep it for future use. I am sure no-one else will want it, because no-one else will have the same feet and fat ankles as me! I still think it is a good idea to write it up, simply for future use, because I really, really want to knit lots of socks.

Edited to Add several hours later......

GAhhhh my maths sucks. My reducing down from 70 to 58 was so totally wrong, I started again. I have now worked out what I hope will work. I will let you know.....

Lace Lessons Learnt, and future plans.

I finally finished my Porom. I have learnt valuable lessons whilst knitting this hat. When I started the pattern I didn't really comprehend that this is a LACE pattern. It was only after the first few rows, I twigged that I what I really needed was life lines. Once I started using life lines, my knitting got a whole lot easier.

Once I was on the decreases for this hat I realised that I was going to be using the life lines a whole lot more than I wanted to, as the lace pattern got very complicated (well for a beginner like me anyway). After frogging back for the third time I was practically weeping with frustration. Then I had an epiphany. I decided to approach the complicated chart pattern the same way that I had the complicated fair isle pattern, that also had me weeping with frustration. What I did was add stitch markers at the end of each chart repeat. Marking up the repeats meant that if I was interrupted or distracted, which happens to me a lot (I take lots of pain killers), I only had to count back to the start of the repeat rather than the start of the round. Marking up the 20 stitches of the chart meant I could focus on small parts of the pattern, and I could verify I was on track every 20 stitches rather than after 160.

Once I marked up the chart repeats for the decreases, I didn't have to frog once, Woohoo!



See all those lovely decreases?

Now all I need to do it block it. Once it is blocked I will show you another pic as I am trying to motivate myself into getting into the habit of blocking. Posting pictures of before and after blocking will hopefully keep me on the straight and narrow.



I am also hoping that the blocking will tighten up the ribbing. I know this is probably a vain hope, but I am clinging to it. The ribbing feels really loose and I worry that the hat will fly off in high winds. If it stays loose, I shall just have to thread some elastic through!



As well as finishing off my hat, I have started on the gauge square for my KAL Blanket. I have used the Mirror Image block, which is number 16 from 200 Knitting Blocks for Blankets, Throws and Afghans by Jan Eaton.



As you can see, I have already started the blocking process. I really must get round to making up a proper blocking board, because it will make the whole 'pinning the pieces straight' thing a bit easier. Thus far, I can tell you the Elle Elite yarn is lovely to knit with and it certainly shows good stitch definition, as I hoped. This first step will help me get on the way to drawing up the plans for the blanket as a whole. It has also given me confidence to knit more cables, as this was my first go.

As well as planning my blanket, over the next few days, I am going to try and start my first pair of gloves in the yummy angora I bought at the beginning of the month. Clare, who owns my LYS, made lots of gloves as Christmas presents and she said that one thing she hates about hand knit gloves, is the seam on the fingers. I found instructions on the net explaining how to make i-cord fingers for gloves and I intend to use this pattern, as it looks fairly straight forward. I hope this means, as the fingers won't have a seam, the gloves will be even softer - YUM!