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

Construction destruction

The company I work for is doing expanding the building I work in, and whatever they're working on today is making the entire building vibrate. Every so often we get the odd rumble and shake thrown in for good measure. I'm hoping the construction doesn't destroy the rest of the building, it's shaking a LOT. I need to find a way to work from home the rest of the week!

On the plus side, I now know what to expect an earthquake to feel like.

I got a lot of stitching done this weekend. I finished the backstitching on my unnamed project and only have the saying and the border left to stitch. I think I've backed myself into a corner with some of my thread & color substitutions so I put it back in the wip pile. Instead I picked up the BC month snappers.





My only *finish* for the weekend was this is the hat I knitted with the Bernat felting yarn that I found at A.C. Moore the other day. It's my first *real* felting project, so I don't have high expectations for how it turns out.

I need to think of a very quick birthday gift for a friend of my mom's, I just heard that we're going to dinner with her tonight. Any suggestions? Hmm, maybe she'd like an oversized pink hat ;-)

Ttys!

Another quick post...

I just finished up all the work I had to do today, and we're going out to dinner for my grandfather's and my brithday tonight, so this will have to be quick. My grandfather and I share a birthday of November 6th - election day this year :-) Usually my mom makes dinner at the house but this year we're going out to dinner. I'll let you know how that goes, but it should be fun.


This is the package I received in the mail yesterday from Mary Kathryn as part of my first exchange. I don't know how she did it, but she picked the perfect pattern for me - green is my favorite color, and after my trips to Scotland I really like thistles. The squares are beautiful. She also sent some linen, pretty green and purple silk to stitch with, and a care package from Celestial Seasonings. It was a great way to start off the week of my birthday, especially since none of my family support my craft hobbies.

Last night I went to see Bee Movie with my aunt C. Despite the overload of commercials and promos and all the hype, it was actually a great movie, very funny. There were multiple problems with the projector though, so don't go see it at Fresh Meadows. I can knit in the dark (and without looking) so I brought my hat to work on and finished almost an entire ball of yarn, which only made the night more fun. It also kept me from eating much popcorn. Hmm, I should start marketing the knitting diet...

Over this weekend I got very far on the-project-I'm-not-supposed-to-have-started, per my rotation and stithching goals that is, but now I'm out of one of the Kreinik colors I'm using. For those of you keeping score at home, that's right: I used up an entire roll of thread in under a week on this project. Luckily when I was in Michael's last Tuesday I saw that the color I need is one of the 3 that they have in stock, so I'm going to run over there and pick it up before dinner. But that means signing off, getting dressed post haste and dashing. So I'll have to owe you a longer post later.

Here's hoping that none of us run out of supplies in the middle of a project today, and
a good week to all.

K