Promised Picspam

Okay, finally here are those photos I was talking about.

The Jack Bauer Felted Manpurse of Justice! The flap actually comes down lower than that; it's just kinda wonky in this pic.

The Koigu mistake rib socks! Which have no creative name, unfortunately. And they're much further along than that now; will have to take some updated pics soon.

NYC swag! Cherry Tree Hill supersock in the "Country Garden" colourway.

And here's a closeup of that colourway, though the colours are perhaps a tweege less vibrant in real life. Still undecided what stitch pattern (if any) I want to use with this yarn.

A Minor Setback

Well, things were going really well on the Felted Manpurse, at least until last night.

By about 10:30 last night I'd gotten it to the stage you see here, with the body done and about halfway done the flap. Great progress! Sure I'd be finished in time to felt it and block it while drying before Thursday!

And then I happened to whack my right index finger against the bathroom counter. Very, very hard. So hard that I thought I must have broken something, though forcing myself to bend my finger through the pain obviously proved that nothing was. Didn't prevent me from letting out a whispered stream of curses, though.

So instead of knitting for hours last night, I spent the time with my index finger tucked between two icecubes, wrapped in a towel. This morning when I woke up it was so stiff and sore I couldn't get back to sleep, but over the day it's loosened up and doesn't hurt as much so there's hope. I finished the flap and did the I-cord bind off and actually I think it's helped get some of the flexibiltiy back, as earlier I couldn't curl my finger around the yarn and now it only hurts when I curl my finger as tightly as I can.

Here's hoping it hasn't gone all stiff again tomorrow, as I need to do the felting then. Of course it wouldn't be Jack Bauer's manpurse if things didn't go badly wrong at the 11th--er, more like 23rd hour and there was a race to the finish, the outcome uncertain until the last minute. ;-)

Here We See The Wily Felter...(now with pictures!)

Am currently on a felting adventure. Worked up two swatches in Lopi that I had hanging around as test swatches for the Satchel (aka the JackBauerManpurseofAsskickery) and they are in the washer as we speak! Feel the excitement! Revel in the fact that I haven't a clue how in the hell they're going to turn out as I'm kind of making this shit up as I go along!

Okay, not quite. I've read a lot of people's blog entries about felting and as I have a number of woolly things that I don't want felted I know the basic rules. Hot water + agitation + soap = felt, with the side addition of cold water shock = even more felting and shrinkage. So I've whacked my swatches in a pillowcase and tossed them in with my sheets and a couple towels that needed washing anyway. Should be done soon. Unfortunately in my haste to get going I forgot to take "before" pictures, but I'll get some "after" ones and hey, at least I took measurements!

ETA: Success! Mostly. Come on down to my felting lab and I'll show you...

...come into my parlour said the spider to the fly...

Okay, here's the felting lab, a.k.a, my basement. Washer, dual-compartment sink (very important in a couple minutes), cleaning products, weird stains on the floor, the whole shebang.

So I pulled the swatches out of the washer and...


...huh. A little felting going on, but not much. Considering I shrank this photo quite a bit and you can still see the stitches, not terribly good results. I did a garter stitch swatch as well, just to see how the different stitch patterns felted, but it's really boring, so I'll leave the photos on that one.

So here's where the fun started! Were I actually making something, this is where I'd do the lazy thing and just whack it back in the washer with more loads of laundry, but I didn't want to waste the water or wait. So instead, I hand-felted it!

Filled up a little basin with hot, hot soapy water and put it in the left half of the double sink becuase that's where the dishwasher drains and ew, it's gross in there. Turned the tap on cold in the other side of the sink, then proceeded to violently agitate and shock that swatch. I was violent. I tortured it. I...pulled a Jack Bauer on it. ;-)

Anyway. After all that shocking and agitating, shocking and agitating, I got...

...FELT! It didn't shrink much width-wise, but it did shrink about half an inch lengthwise. I know it usually doesn't felt evenly in both dimensions, but then I thought it might change a bit more at least. The swatch was fairly dense to begin with, though.

So looks like it worked well. Both swatches are drying downstairs, and I'll see what they feel like when they're dry. But it looks like the Satchel (aka JackBauerManpurseofJustice) is a go for New York. Will get the yarn tomorrow. *cackles*

Of course I'm kind of bodging it as I've never seen the yarn used for the original project, and there are a bunch of other variables with that but the stitch gauge was about the same and really, as long as it's big enough for my stuff...

Besides. Making stuff up as I go along? So Jack.

...Now I wonder if I could do it in 24 hours?