11.14.2007

Felting's not as eco-friendly as I'd imagined...

I woke up extra early yesterday so that I could pop my laundry in before work, since I was dangerously low on options. Well I'd been meaning to toss my hat in - the knitted hat I posted - in order to felt it, but I completely forgot it. Mornings are so not my thing, I end up forgetting tons of stuff I *meant* to do the night before. Turns out it was for the best though, when I got home last night I googled up some felting instructions, and apparently it's not as simple as just tossing it in the laundry... You need to put it in the machine by itself and after the water gets poured in, and then run the agitation part of the cycle a few times. It seemed very wasteful of both water and electricity, all to felt a little hat that probably won't even turn out right! Plus the odds of me getting the washing machine settings right (and that my mom would let me try it with her machine) are very bad. So I found some hand felting instructions, and tonight I'm sit watch the new Project Runway with a bucket of water and some sort of stirring implement. Wish me luck!

Last week for my birthday I met up with some friends for dinner & karaoke. My friend JS (the one who's getting married) was so funny, I don't even think that knitting came up in conversation but she turns to me at dinner and says, "You know Kim, I have a neck that gets cold." My response was like, "what the heck are you talking about?" and then she explained - "Make me a scarf!". It was the funniest way I've ever gotten a request like that.

JS likes blues and purples, so I found a pretty blue yarn with purple highlights. While I was at AC Moore I found this eyelash yarn for $1 a skein(!), so I bought some in silver and I'm using both. I'm doing a basic k2 p2 ribbing about 12 inches wide, and so far I've done about 8 inches. It's very sparkly and I'll try to post a picture for you tonight.

In other news, I signed up for a new needlepoint meetup. Needlepoint is far inferior to cross stitch, mostly because it's so mindless and exorbitantly expensive, but I dabble. I'm hoping that after the first session or two I can bring some other needlecraft projects to work on instead. To that end, I think I'm teaching the meetup organizer to knit. :-D

Backtracking to Monday's post, in the end I didn't get/make anything for the friend that I saw Monday night but over dinner I figured out what I'm going to make her - a beaded hair clip thingie - and I'll probably just give it to her for Chanukah instead of her birthday.

Ttys,
Kim

2 comments:

Anna van Schurman said...

It's true that you don't want to felt with the laundry you're washing, but you could felt a few pieces at a time (put them in separate pilowcases to control the excess fuzz). Still, probably not eco-friendly as I've had to wash some items several times to get them to felt.

Beatrice said...

Good luck with the needlepiont meet up.
I hope you meet some great stitching friends.