I finally finished that darn felted bag that I started ages ago. I have to show you a sideways pictures because I can’t get the computer to save the rotated version (No matter how I point my camera, WordPress always shows the picture sideways. At least it normally lets me change the orientation, but today it likes it sideways. This bag is cursed. And sideways.)
The important thing – the really important thing, and I can’t stress this enough – is that it is finished.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. That was a friend of mine’s response to this, my first attempt at needle felting:
This took about an hour or so from start to finish, which included fussing around with the armature (read: pipe cleaner stolen from my children’s craft supplies) and a few false starts figuring out how much wool I needed for each stage of building up the body. Oh, and endlessly poking the legs to get all trace of the armature hidden.
Toward the end, I couldn’t help but feel a little like I was making some sort of demented voodoo doll, and that somewhere there was a poor little sheep thinking it had suddenly developed arthritis and migraines all at the same time.
But this one is fiber related, so that’s okay, right?
Last weekend I went to a local artisan’s festival here in town, and our local Waldorf-inspired school had a table filled with fantastic and fantastical things. I ended up buying a couple of lovely magical wands for the daughters of friends of mine (coincidentally made by another friend of mine, though I didn’t know that at the time). But, the thing that really caught my attention was the population of felted gnomes. Unspeakably cute and cuddly, I handled them way more than is decent. Yet, in the end, I could not quite bring myself to buy one. Something in my heart made me understand that I wanted – needed – to make my own, although I didn’t have the faintest clue how they were put together (fairy dust and love?).
If you aren’t familiar with this type of felted project, let me direct your attention to Felting Dreams (an etsy store), which has wonderful examples.
How I love the internet. Within 48 hours, I now know that what I want to learn how to do is called needle felting, and I have identified two books and about five websites that look promising. Oh, and I ordered a set of felting needles and a felting pad. Because what do I need? Another hobby. (And my very own felt gnome!)
I never actually admitted what happened to my (in hindsight over-) enthusiastic offer to knit Redbeard whatever he wanted, did I? Hmm, well, the good news is that I have found the perfect yarn for making a felted scarf. It is soft and pliable, even after being felted. Not stiff in any way, or even scratchy.
Too bad I was trying to make a glasses case with it.
Actually, even setting the yarn aside, this thing was just not the right shape for glasses. On the upside – it IS the perfect shape for knitting needles, so I now have my very own needle case….
I’ve decided that knitting has some important similarities to baking. Actually, I’m sure that there are lots and lots of similarities, as I think about it just now. But, the one – the key one – that matters right now is that if you’re going to go off-recipe, you need to think through all the other things that might need adjusting to deal with your crazy off-recipe plans.
So – I’m making another felted bag and decided to modify the same pattern I’ve used before. I wanted to make the bag oblong instead of circular, though, and change the sizing a bit, so I knew that I’d end up with a different number of stitches. No problem. When I got to the point last week where I needed to start the handles, I got out a pencil, counted my stitches and worked out how to adjust the pattern.
The circular bag pattern calls for K25 and BO25 back and forth, so that you have four patches of 25 stitches awaiting four spiffy handle straps to be knitted on them, which will then be paired and kitchener stitched together for two handles. That equals (carry the 1, cross the ‘t’…) 200 stitches. But my oblong bag only had 152 stitches, so I dutifully recalculated – I wanted the handles to be the same width, so I shrunk the BO stitches to accommodate 150 instead of 200. I dithered a little about having the smaller gap, but decided it would be good. So, off I went…. I do the first the first handle strap. Ta Da! I do the second and then stop to think about whether I want to attach this strap to the one that I just knitted because… (anyone see where this is going?) I want the handles to be oriented like a tote bag, and so I need to make sure that the right… straps… are stitched… togeth- oh, crap.
Yep – I’d kept the equal spacing of the circular bag pattern. So, I’ve got bag straps that just sort of randomly sprout up around the bag. I have seriously considering just rolling with it, and having a crazy freak bag that only a mother could love. But, no… I’ll frog it back down the rim tonight and try again. This time I think I’ll use a calculator… (because that is clearly the problem here, nothing to do with my logic-type thinking abilities)
Drunk with knitting power (and maybe some beer), I recently asked Redbeard what I could make for him. He thought about it for a minute, and finally asked if I could make him a glasses case. Redbeard has worn glasses since he was 12 and has an aversion to direct sunlight that means that he never goes out without prescription sunglasses and some sort of brimmed hat. This means he’s almost always wearing one pair of glasses and carrying the other – in a sequence of never-ideal cases that have failed him in one way or another.
So – no pressure. Just not to fail him where countless others have.
I decided to go the felt route, and found a wool-mohair-angora mixed yarn in a color Redbeard likes. I did a felted test patch, and wasn’t happy with how well it felted down with size 8 needles, so I knitted it on my smallest needles (US 5) instead. I didn’t even really look for a pattern, because I couldn’t believe anyone else had this crazy project, and I knew what I wanted to try – a rectangle combined with a triangle-y flap that ended in a string that would be wrapped around the case to help secure the glasses. Here’s what it looks like, before stitching the rectangle into a pouch:
I used the SSK and K2tog stitches (that I learned from the market bag) on the knitting side to create the triangle flap, but wanted to reduce on the purl side, too. I couldn’t find anything that made any sense to me to use as the purling counter-point to SSK, so I just cast off one stitch at the start of each purl row. This worked really well, actually! The P2tog took care of the last stitch.
I’ve sown up the pouch, but am too tired to get a picture, let alone start felting.
BUT before I trudge to bed – I want to also bring up my other project, that I mentioned awhile ago and have been making slooooooow progress on. There is something about this scarf that makes it hard for me to want to work on it. Apparently I’m not so good at counting to 7 over and over again and find it really challenging (knit 7, purl 7, knit 7, purl – wait how many was that?)
Or, even more likely, the “keyhole” experience that I suffered at the beginning of scarf has scarred me for life. Which is how long it will take me to be ready to face it again at the other end of this scarf. Don’t ask why the keyhole is off-center. Just don’t ask. (I have no idea.)
The market bag is drying on the rack (that sounds so much more professional than “my son’s plastic toy shopping basket balanced precariously on top of his plastic toy microphone stand).
It’s almost there, and it looks like the re-felting worked! (I ran it two more times through – for a total of four complete “quick wash” hot-cold cycles.)
Here’s the close up:
And, the bag in its final felted glory:
It’s weird, though – I deliberately used the same type of yarn for the green and yellow so they would felt the same, but I think that the stitching must matter because the sides are definitely more felted than the bottom. I’m already planning to do another one – making the sides and handles longer.
So, I may have been subject to irrational exuberance yesterday – upon closer inspection this morning I realize that I can still see some stitch definition in the felted bag. There’s no doubt that it’s felted, but it’s not felted-beyond-all-reason-felted, which I was hoping for.
I’m going to look online to see if people have had success with further felting even after something is mostly dried. I won’t be all that disappointed if this is as good as it’s going to get – I’m still pretty happy with the bag! But… if I could felt it further….
And, for my next trick, I’m going to turn this lump of fuzz into a scarf:
Redbeard and I were convinced that this had to be roving until the nice lady at the yarn store patiently showed us how, yes indeed, it was really yarn.
Yes, it’s true. I am a felter.
The bag is still drying – I’ll get pics once it’s closer to dry. But, either my expectations are low, or this felting thing is not so hard after all. Can’t wait to use this bag (and start working on the next felting project – a glasses case for Redbeard… though in this weather I should be thinking about a nice cloche hat…)
Here’s the pre-felted final bag in all its non-felted glory:
The bottom looks only mildly screwy, especially from a comfortable distance:
The pattern actually deliberately causes those raised stitches. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it – and in this case it’s actually true!)
I learned a bunch with this pattern – I learned the wrong way to roll a ball of yarn (unless you like unpicking wooly knots), I learned that knitting in the round mostly means not having to purl (I like knitting in the round), and I learned the ssk stitch. All very cool. But the best thing, bar none, was I learned the kitchener stitch:
Redbeard swears I actually said out loud “Holy crap – it works!”
Now, I get to go learn how to felt in a front-loading washing machine. After some googling, I’ve decided to follow this set of instructions that appear highly rated by other felters. So, as much as it kills me – I’m not felting yet until I make a test patch.
So close!