First try at felting

I spent yesterday evening experimenting with hand-felting* while M went to see the opening of Iron Man.

I did this potholder on size 8 needles in garter stitch, with 40 stitches and about 100 rows and a crocheted slipstitch border all the way around. I can't find the yarn label right now, but I'll add that info when I do.

I haven't noticed any change in size, but maybe I just need to felt it more. We'll see how it feels after it dries. Right now it's still damp and feels very heavy and thick. It felt thick before felting, but had lots more drape.

It turns out that dark brown knitting isn't at all easy for me to photograph, but here's what I managed to get. The first photo is pre-felting, the second is post.

*Yes, I know that technically this is fulling, not felting.

Some Finished Projects

Here are the crocheted purse and the really soft scarf. Finished!

The scarf is really more purple than blue. I ended up restarting it on much bigger needles (US11, I think) and making it really skinny so it would be longer.

Tribbles

OK, not really. These are washrags knitted with the pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting. M calls them tribbles because he imagines I create them about as quickly as tribbles create one another. That's not exactly true, but it's a fact that these are one of my favorite I-want-to-knit-but-I-don't-want-to-think projects. They're like coloring with yarn instead of crayons.

Striped towel & Really Short, Really Soft Scarf

Miscellaneous stuff. The striped towel is done in dishcloth cotton on US7 needles, and is about 14" across and currently 13" long. The short scarf is done in Sinsation yarn that I got on sale. I only have 1 ball of it - hence the shortness. But it's really, really soft, so I got it anyway.

Grey Hat

Hats are a good project when I want to relax and not think too much about the knitting. And when they're done I can always save them for the Dulann Project if I haven't got another home for them.

Here's my latest hat. It's done in 1x1 ribbing with more of the grey mystery yarn from Mom, which is approximately DK weight. I think I did this one on US5 needles. I mostly used DPNs, but I also experimented a bit with the magic loop technique.

Learning to Crochet

Turns out, crocheting is good for more than just putting edges on knitted projects and using the hook to pick up dropped stitches. Who knew? AD is showing me how to crochet. I've tried to figure it out from books, but I got frustrated with it. And why do it that way when I have an expert available?

This will be a little wallet-sized bag when it's done, very much like a messenger bag except smaller. So far it's 6 inches wide and 3 1/4 inches tall.

(There's M's cat again, helping. She considers the crochet hook a fine toy and likes batting it around. I'll have to find a way to block her efforts to steal the hook from me when I'm not paying attention. I may even have to resort to putting my project away when I'm not working on it, but I'm saving this as a last resort.)

Stockinette = Pringle's Potato Chip

Alas. No amount of blocking can make this necktie behave. AD knitted this beautiful tie, but it curls. I blocked the hell out of it, but no dice. As soon as we put the tie on her husband's neck, the damn thing curled right up again. She tried steaming it and ironing it after that, but no. We talked about lining it with a stiff fabric, but it would be one exceptionally uncomfortable tie.

Don't know if you can make out the knocked over pins in these pics, but they're courtesy of M's cat. So helpful.







Edited to add:

AD says:

I sprayed the tie with the imitation spray starch "Magic Sizing" and let it dry while pinned flat. Then I carefully wound it up and stuck a couple pins in it. It looks like a sushi roll. I just unwound it and it looks good so I wound it back into the sushi roll and will store it like that until needed.

Yay!