March Projects

It has been a very busy month for us. Jeff finished winter quarter with passing grades and we enjoyed a nice time while he was on spring break. Now it's back to school for him. I began working as a part-time custodian at Xenia Christian and Jeff transferred over to the south campus. (I'm pretty glad about that because we don't work really well together). We also have found an apartment and will be moving some time in April. We are really excited to be moving into the Kettering area right across from a nice little park. The area is even quieter than the Legacy Campus where we are living with my parents now.

I made a few scarves this month. I'm pretty proud of myself getting started on some Christmas presents so early. Hopefully this year wont be such a mad dash at the end to get things finished by Christmas. We shall see. The gray scarf is a pattern I have made before, it is a really great guy scarf and since most of my family is made up of guys this is pretty perfect. The hooded scarf was a little more complicated. It took a while to do since it is all seed stitch but I learned how to make button holes which is pretty cool. My mom will be getting this scarf and she loves it. (Yes she has already seen it and I know, I'm just really bad about keeping secrets. Besides, I don't want to give her something she doesn't like). I had Jeff take some pics of the scarf on me. It is great because it wraps up like a hood but it can also just wrap like a scarf and not look weird like some hooded scarfs I've seen. I'm thinking of modifying the pattern to make another one that isn't seed stitch and doesn't have the scalloped edges. We shall see. Sorry I look a little sick in the pics, I wasn't really wearing makeup. But you still get the effect of the scarf.

I have also been trying my hand at crochet this month. We visited Jeff's parents last month and Linda (my mother-in-law) let me have her old crochet hooks. So I have delved a little into the world of crochet. At first I made some little flowers just to get the hang of things. I have no idea what I will do with these, maybe use them as face scrubbers? I don't know. Then I made some little circular face scrubbers they work pretty well and are the size of cotton rounds you would buy at the store.

The final project I have worked on this month is my amazing technicolor blanket (yes that is what I'm calling it thank very much) I have been working on this one off and on for a while and started putting some pieces together and adding to it now. It will be a little throw blanket when its done. I have a feeling I will be working on it for a long time though.

Felting Using a Front Load Machine

This past week I have been trying a new knitting technique called felting. It makes a very fuzzy dense fabric that looks nothing like knit. Its pretty cool. Since this was my first experience I figured things wouldnt end up perfect and I was right.... For my first felting experience I used a pattern called French Press Felted Slippers.
First I knitted all the pieces of the slippers: I general guideline is to use needles that are pretty large and make the piece much larger than you intend it to be. Wool yarn is essential otherwise it wont shrink when you put it in the wash.

Then I sewed them together and wove in all the ends, this part took longer than the knitting. The second picture shows how huge it was on my foot before felting! I was a little dubious that this huge thing would eventually fit my foot.

Then I began the felting process. Which consists of putting your work into a mesh laundry bag or pillowcase and putting it through the wash cycle on hot. It helps to put some tennis balls or a pair of old jeans because they add to the agitation process. You then check the project every 5-10 min to see how it is shaping up. Since I have a front loader things were a little tricky. It is crucial to not let the project go through the spin cycle or you will get some funky shaping in your fabric. My machine locks so I had to power the whole thing down and restart the machine every time I checked the slippers.

 Once the work is the size you want it you set it out to dry, this could take a few days. I shaped my slippers and left them to it.

 I felted the straps to long :( and they are a little misshapen and lumpy. Perhaps if I had blocked them they would have turned out better. There are spots on the slippers that are a bit lumpy as well. I'm not sure what would help this in the future. But most of felting seems like trial and error. I'm not thrilled with the yarn color (it blends in really well with our dirty Berber carpet) But it was on sale and I thought that if it was a total bust I wouldn't have wasted much money on the project that way. But I will try again sometime with a more vibrant color. But all in all the slippers are really soft and fit really well. So even though they are a bit ugly they are super comfy and in the end that is what slippers are all about anyway. Here are some pics of the finished product: