Monday, January 22, 2007

Felted FO's and Grey Sweater

As promised...a day late...here are some pix of the clogs and the cat bed.
CLOGS
The clogs turned out well. Obviously they weren't for me, that is my shoe in there. :-) They fit Joe well, but he's a little skittish walking around in them on the hardwood floors. I've thought about using puff paint on the bottom and other stuff along those lines but given Joe's gracefulness, or lack thereof, and the fact that the man just learned how to walk in flip-flops this year (!) I don't think that would be much help. I also considered sewing some vinyl on the soles, again not enough for this man I'm sure. Next time I'm town I think I'll go to Big Lots or some such place and see if I can find a pair of cheapy flip-flops and attach those soles on to the bottom of these clogs....that should work, something really sturdy.
CAT BED
The bottom is crocheted, just cuz, you know, I didn't want to spend forever knitting this.
Here's the finished product, still stuffed and drying. Obligatory cuteness photo with kitty all snugly to come.
Felting notes: Both pieces were made with vintage Bear Brand wool. From that same lot of wool I bought eons ago at an estate sale and did the major red dyeing job of the graduated peachy to orange colors. And yes there is still LOTS more of it left!!!
I learned that I cannot, under any circumstance it seems, open my washer once it has been started. I figured I wasn't going to be able to open it in mid-cycle (duh, it's a front load), but I thought I'd be able to do so between cycles....NOPE....sigh....so my felting days, other than with things like this, in which I don't fear the dreaded spin cycle crease, are over. At least until Summer when I can cajole Joe into hooking up the old top load washer in the basement. :-)
Then again.....I'm making a new felted bag. Just a tiny bit to go and then the felting. I'm considering felting it by hand with my wash board. Yes, it will be a work out no doubt, but I'm thinking having my hands in soapy hot water sounds like a good thing right about now! If not I'll take it to town with me when I go looking for soles for Joe's clogs and use my sister's washer.
The Grey Sweater aka Tempting the Gods
The sweater is done, has been for a while, but the gods weren't tempted and the yarn never came. I'm assuming the yarn company forgot about me.....sigh.
Sweater recap:
Used some OK vintage orlon (?)...it's as OK as this kind of fiber goes I guess. I reversed engineered an old fav Gap sweater, but modified the original funnel neck to a stand up open neck. I made the sleeves extra, extra long. One because of my ape-ishly long arms and two because my hands get soooo cold. (lack of blood flow all the way down there? lol) I added thumb holes in the cuffs so I basically have fingerless gloves attached to my sleeves. Love it, especially when I'm sitting in my chair, with my hands up in the air for hours on end...... oh I don't know, knitting maybe (?)........gotta love my life!
The lace wimple pix tomorrow maybe. I don't want to post it without a link to the designer's pattern.
Maybe tomorrow some pix of the new neon food color dyeing experiments. Was planning to do those yesterday, but had a granddaughter in tow. Usually on her visiting weekends there are lots of fibery things going on, but this weekend she was into it.