May 30, 2008
Wooly Escapades
I'm back in SG
after a work trip and an all-too-short break in the Bay Area. Boohoo. I'll blog about that when I'm ready.
Anyhow, my lazy sister finally put up the photos of my recent knitting projects so here they are! I had found a couple of great sites online to buy wool and pattern books - check out Pick Up Sticks and Jimmy Beans Wool - and went on a buying frenzy. Through Pick Up Sticks I discovered the magic of felting.
Did you know that felting is merely knitting (100% wool) that is then soaked in hot water and agitated to produce something that is dense and stiff? It's really cool! I started out with making coin purses and am now onto bigger projects like pillows.
Here's my first brush with felting!
You can felt your items either by hand or by tossing it into a washing machine. So far I haven't tried the washing machine method as my items have been pretty small. For hand-felting, the instructions were to soak the items in hot water and agitate with a wooden spoon. After about 10 minutes of beating my pouch with a wooden spoon I decided I was getting nowhere so I just started scrubbing (as if I was washing clothes by hand) and then suddenly, magically, the coin purse started to shrink and harden. It's really cool!
More photos in the extended entry...
Another project that I did was a scarf for my sister's wooden dog. Yeah you read that right - her wooden dog. He's supposed to be a British bulldog with the kingly name of Sir Wilfred Waddles the 3rd. So, I made a scarf for him with a Union Jack pattern. I'm extra proud of this one because I made up the pattern myself and it turned out to be very nice! I might make one more for myself, and because the wools that I picked (on sale at Spotlight!) were so thick this scarf was a breeze to knit. It probably only took me about 6 hours of work in total.
Here's the scarf in all its glory!
And here we have Sir Waddles modeling off his scarf:
Hehe. More projects on the way! :D
Before and after photos of the coin purse:
Agitation that didn't get me anywhere:
