Alison and Claire have finished their felted MP3/iPod purses for 4H Sheep Club. During a moment of boredom, Iain even starting making one!
The girls' projects were knit with "Atacama" 100% Alpaca, hand-dyed in Chile (and paid for by the Sheep Club). Alison used a 6.0 mm 40" cable; Claire used a 6.5. (Cable size of 16" would have worked fine; I don't own any). Using the long cable, they didn't knit "in the round" but used magic loop method instead.
Here are the purses completed, pre-felting. You can see the difference in size due only to Claire's larger diameter needle.
Here is a photo mid-wash cycle. If you look up felting instructions online, the experts tell you that front-loading washers don't work. This is not true (at least for alpaca). Here are both purses, with i-cord attached, plus two relatively clean pairs of running shoes, zooming around in our front loader. Use the hottest water setting, and add just a little bit of laundry detergent.
Alison and I actually sat and watched most of the cycle. We are easily amused ;-). Here are the girls pulling out the felted purses.
Here are the purses being "blocked". In this case, our best blocks were the TV remotes, encased safely in ziplock bags. For most purses, a book or books work best.
And the final product! Dried and ready for the next step ... the girls still need to add velcro, plus at a future 4H meeting they will be needle felting designs on the bag with merino roving. Claire's bag is still slightly larger, but they both felted beautifully. I can't believe the difference made by needle size.
As for the "edible" socks ... we paid a visit to one of our LYS's this week. The girls had visited Joseph Brant Hospital with my mom, who gave them quite the tour. The tour ended with mom buying them lottery tickets. Where is that grimace smiley when you need it? Truly, it's a hospital fundraiser ... I wasn't that concerned. And Alison won $25! She split it with the other two children, and Claire wanted to use her portion to buy ... what else ... yarn to make HER first pair of socks! She purchased double-knit weight; it's lovely to work with and will knit up more quickly than fingering weight. I continue to refine my generic toe-up sock pattern with instructions for different yarn weights and sizes.
I pride myself on NOT having a stash. I try desperately to work on one project at a time. I blew it this week. I was admiring "TOFUtsies" sock yarn at Lisa's store, and she gave me a free ball, and then another one at half-price. She was trying to get rid of it because she's not carrying it anymore. It was inexpensive. It will make lovely summer-weight socks. I couldn't resist. The yarn is 50% Superwash Wool, 25% Soy fibres, 22.5% cotton and 2.5% chitin (made from shrimp and crab shells; a natural antibacterial ingredient). Okay, only some of it is edible sounding ;-). However I have no plans to knit these anytime soon; hence, I now have stash.
I also purchased enough Lopi felting wool to get my started on my next project; one of these. I hope to donate one to the 4H Sheep Club to be used as a fundraiser this year. Heh, heh. Or perhaps next year :-). The pattern is from FiberTrends in the U.S.
copyright FiberTrends
2 comments:
My goodness, K--what a HUGE stash! (she says sarcastically, as the bags full of roving threaten to take over every square inch of floor space in her home office)
Actually, I applaud your lack-of-stash goal. Good for you.
And your dds' felted pouches are very cool!
Oh oh.
Would bags of sheep's wool (straight off the sheep) be considered stash?
Oh no.
I've only included things I've actually purchased ;-). So I guess I'm aiming for lack-of-purchased-stash!
There's a local person selling a loom and older wheel for $100 each ... oh how I wish we had some extra cash sitting around :-).
The girls have needle felted the purses now; very cute. It's been a great 4H project; the Sheep Club project board will be very pretty at the Fair this year, with 15 or 18 or these in varying sizes and colours on display.
Have a great day!
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