fail... or happy accident?

After I frogged that thrift store sweater, I decided to try one of mine I'd decided not to keep. This one is 100% lambswool:

I took it apart and tried to frog it and ran into issues. The yarn is thin and kept breaking. So... I tossed the pieces into a lingerie bag and threw them in the washer to felt a bit. After, I cut them up and dyed the pieces with Kool-Aid.

The small pieces from the yoke are destined to become catnip kitty toys.

The one on the right was left in the original color.

Not sure what the lower sleeves will end up becoming.

I had fun playing around with different techniques dyeing all of these though!

The upper sleeves were fun too.

I especially like how this one turned out.

It almost looks like graffiti.

The body of the sweater will most likely become a bag of some sort.

WIP Wednesday

Ah, the messenger bag.

Yes, this is the one I started ages ago!

I've spent the past few days here in Buffalo working on the body portion of the bag - perfect while watching movies in my hotel. It finally came off the needles last night! Woo! Not enough left to make the strap from the same yarn - that leftover bit will be knit up into an interior divider instead (ugh, more stockinette). Wishing now I'd thought to bring the contrasting color of this yarn so I could knit up the strap as well. I did bring a bit of cotton though, so I'm not yarnless. lol The plan is to overdye this tan in a chocolate brown and use this

for the strap. What do you think? (Any suggestions on dyeing also gladly accepted.)

Woolly Weekend

It's that time of year! Lambs!

So cute! These were all bottle-fed so they were super-friendly too. I headed off to Franklin, IN, for the Hoosier Hills Fiberarts Festival on Friday where I got to see these little ones... and lots of yarny, crafty goodness. It was a looong day of fibery fun. =) It's always fun checking out all the booths and seeing what crafty people are up to. Of course, there were lots of beautifully hand-dyed yarns and roving and some other creative handmade items too.

There were some cute takes on the cotton dishcloth:

And some great deals on handy books:

A book on natural yarn dyeing and a community cookbook to benefit the animal shelter. $12 for 2 books? Not a bad deal at all! And there was just about everything sheepy you could think of! Loving that little felted sheep with golf tee legs!

And yeah, lots of yarny goodness. =) One booth had these small (100yd) skeins of wool perfect for felting and only $1.25 each! That was a great opportunity to get lots of colors in smaller amounts for a few felting projects I have planned and also want to try my hand at over dyeing a few of those lighter skeins as well. I'm working on a couple of ideas for things to put up on etsy. Should be fun!

If there's a fiber festival anywhere near you, check it out. You won't regret it!

Current WIPs

Let's start with the most recent, shall we?

 This blanket (Ravelry links, y'all) was started back in mid-Feb... this year. I was working in Dayton. When I left, this went into its bag and has not re-emerged since. I really need to pull that out. I knit/crochet a lot more on the road than I do at home and I've been mostly at home since Dayton.

You want to go back a bit farther, you say? How about this?

My Top Down Button Front Capelet, started back in September in Buffalo. Yeah, hasn't made it very far though... I'm getting the urge to pick this back up as well.

More? How about the felted messenger bag that got as far as a swatch and about a foot and a half in length?

Hey, it's only been on the needles since July! heh I'm taking this to Ohio with me in a couple days. Nice, brainless knitting. Probably taking that capelet too just to have a choice.

Can you take a little more? There's the afghan I started last April and had big plans for...

 I'd planned to finish a square each trip out on the road. I guess those plans didn't quite pan out. heh I do think this has some emotional baggage attached though. Someone else in the house decided to follow suit and give this afghan a go and well, I kinda lost my will. I was debating whether to finish this block and move on or just frog what I have done and maybe come back to this later on. I'm thinking frog. So, one less project on the needles...

Speaking of frogging. Remember this?

I'm frogging this today too. Finally.

Let's dig farther, shall we? Last, and smallest... a book scarf started for my mother during her crazy Harry Potter phase.

Yeah, that was started in September... 2007. hahahaha Most boring thing I've ever knit... and on such teensy needles to boot. I think I'll take this too, try to knit on it and if that doesn't happen, I'll frog it.

It's apparently Spring cleaning time for WIPs too! Off to frog...

Had to come back and add this pic. Frogging complete! =)

Yay! Feels good to finally have those off the needles and the possibilities wide open once again. My mother about passed out when she saw me frogging the sweater. How could I possibly rip out something so close to being finished?! heh I didn't love it, that's how. I LOVE the yarn and want it to be something I will love and wear for years to come. That sweater wasn't it. Man, that was fun to frog too! Not sure now why it took me so long to get around to doing it...

Oh, as a follow-up to yesterday. My mother did finally tear herself away from the tv and go to the store... at 1:30 in the morning. I guess there's not much on that time of night. That, and I'm guessing, she didn't worry about "putting on her face" for a trip to Wal-mart in the middle of the night.

Back to the Needles

Hey, wasn't this mostly a knitting blog?! heh Haven't been doing so much of that lately. I think being stuck in the desert in ridiculous heat finally sucked the will to knit out of me... I'm starting to find the urge again now though. I bought this yarn with the intention of making a felted messenger bag. It was from a non-profit shop in Seattle and cost next to nothing (well under $2 for three cakes of super bulky wool). It's been stored in a suitcase under my bed the past few months, waiting for inspiration to strike and prompt me to do some math to figure out stitch counts for the simple pattern I had in mind. That day (technically, night) finally came around 1 this morning (still on AZ time even though I'm in IN for the weekend).

Step One: Knit a swatch - unavoidable here!

Step Two: Beat the crap out of it... er, FELT it... to judge shrinkage

Step Three: Knit... A LOT =)

Fiber and Friendly Felting!

I made the short drive south to Greencastle, IN, today for The Fiber Event. This was the first fiber festival I'd been to and I was not disappointed! The weather was not ideal (some rain, too much wind) but it was so much fun browsing all the booths and checking out the fuzzy (expensive!) bunnies and alpacas. This festival is truly a spinner's paradise - tons of roving and fleece, lots of wheels. I even got to try my hand at spinning (badly)! Great fun! When I felt the roving at one booth, the ladies started giving me lots of info about what they had for sale. When I said I didn't spin, they asked if I'd like to give it a try on their wheel... as if I'd say no. haha It's definitely something that would take a good bit of practice to get acceptable results. heh Apparently, I didn't completely suck, but I definitely wasn't a natural. hahaha I could see it being a ton of fun to learn though! One of the ladies even gave me two balls of roving, each bigger than my head, to get me started. Can we say enabler? They suck you in and hope you come back next year for the good stuff! =)

It's beautiful stuff, but I'm told I won't want to wear it after it's spun (way itchy). It would make a great felted purse/bag though! And I picked up a little bit of dyed roving to try my hand at needle felting some flowers on a felted bag or hat too. It won't be anything compared to this: All I can say is... WOW. These are just a couple of the needle felted animals made by Linda Martin of Martin's Magical Menagerie. She does amazing needle felting! These are solid wool, no forms involved. That camel is so adorable! Reminds me of the characters in the Serendipity books.

The faces of her needle felted animals are amazing. The larger animals are well over a foot tall - probably closer to 2'. So much work. Such fun critters.
Amazingly, I left with NO YARN. haha I'll admit I was tempted by the watermelon yarn - knits up in thick stripes (dk green lightens to white and then darkens to red) but the $25 price tag held me off. Great idea though! =)