Wooly Peeps

Rock star peep

Not too long ago Craft Magazine posted a link on Facebook to a very clever Easter-y project by radmegan  - needle-felted Peeps!  What a great idea!  Luckily my thoughtful cousin re-posted the post and tagged me.  I bought the instructions from radmegan on Etsy and had quite some fun.  I'd forgotten how great needle felting is.  Except for the pain from occasionally poking my finger...

I was lucky enough to take a needle-felting class by the amazing Moxie several years ago, so I had amassed the necessary tools -

foam block and sharp-as-heck felting needles

wool roving

By the way, Moxie has foam blocks that are biodegradable, which is very cool. This one is from a kit that Weaving Works sold that included needles.  I came upon this multi-colored roving in the knitter's guild booth at the craft fair held out in Ocean Shores over Thanksgiving weekend.  You can buy single colors from sources like Weaving Works.

So, it was obvious that whereas radmegan's peeps were true to the real Peep colors, mine were going to be funky.


This handful of roving -

equaled this peep - 

Tropical sherbet peep?

A few more -

Tie-dye peep for my cousin  :)

Peep gang

Then one last design that I HAD to try - 

skully peep

Rock star photo of skully peep

The Bag of Frustration

Thank goodness for the fantastic support of friends and family.  Otherwise, this bag was leading me down a path towards a existential crisis regarding my creativity!  

I wanted to contribute a bag to my dad's Lions Club's annual fund raising auction.  I had my eye on a felted tote bag in a fabulous knitting book I have called "Alterknits" by Leigh Radford.  I knew it would be a great project for using up a bunch of wool odds and ends.  And there was a variation in the book that has handles made out of clear vinyl tubing.  I really liked that handle idea.  Here is a picture of the bag from the book's website, this being the version with felted handles:

 I decided to make the version that is supposed to be about 20"x20" after felting.

So I followed the instructions religiously, following directions for needle size and the number of stitches to cast on.  I did what is a pretty crazy combination of colors for me, but I liked the tropical feel to the mix.  I knit and knit and knit.  Luckily it was mindless knitting on circular needles (all knit stitch), good for movies, car trips, etc.  When I finally reached 35" long as directed, I did a 3-needle bind-off for the bottom seam and here it is:

A long skinny sack.  I was suspcious of how long and skinny it was at this point (like the perfect size for a long, skinny skirt), but I know that knitting shrinks more vertically than horizontally when it is felted...so I wasn't worried.  I finished the bottom as directed so it would be flat like the bottom of a paper grocery bag and popped it into the washing machine to felt.

I was expecting a square bag, so I was a bit shocked to see a most definitely rectangular-shaped felted bag come out of the machine -  

I don't think this picture even does justice to how long and skinny the bag was at this point.  It went from about 34" to 20" long, but I didn't measure the beginning width for a comparison there, darn it!  It ended up being about 13" wide.  Darn!  Not the big tote shape that I had in mind.

I was soooo frustrated with the long skinny shape.  I was ready to cut several inches off the top or the bottom.  But I took it for "show and tell" to my knitting buddies, and a couple of them came up with the idea of simply turning down a cuff - 

The fact that there would be two layers of "fabric" for the handle to attach through seemed like a great bonus.  So that's what I did.  Thanks a ton, my wise and clever friends!!

You probably have no idea how hard it is to find clear vinyl tubing with no permanent lettering on it, and I wouldn't blame you for not knowing.  Take my word for it.  Our local pet store had enough of the right size tubing for one handle.  This tubing had very little writing, but it had a slightly bluish tint which I didn't really like.  I found beautiful crystal clear tubing at McLendon's Hardware, and I spent an afternoon trying to figure out a clever way to remove the lettering on it.  No solvent that we have worked.  I tried different abrasive attachments with the Dremel, and that left long frosted patches instead of print.  So did a little buffing attachment I have for the Dremel.  I thought that maybe if I carefully heated the frosted area up with a little tiny butane torch it might shine it back up, but that made the tubing have a slightly opaque cast.  Grrr.  Finally I tried a pet store further afield and found more of the bluish tubing and decided I'd have to go with that and the little bit of writing it had on it.  Amazingly enough, I discovered in the end that I could rub the lettering off of the pet store stuff with my fingernail.  Crazy. 

The instructions in the "Alterknits" book say to attach the tubing by hand-sewing it onto the bag through a couple of holes, with a button sewn onto the outside of the tubing in the process.  This was not bullet-proof enough for me.  I came upon something to use that is now my new favorite fastener - copper rivets!  

We had some of these in the hardware that we brought home after cleaning out my step-grandpa's basement workshop, but I had no idea what they were for, until now.  Thanks to some awesome help at McLendon's, I realized that these rivets would do the trick to fasten my handles to my bag in a very solid way.  Luckily the rivets come in different lengths, because I had some serious thickness to fasten together.  

Here's what the attachment looks like on the outside -   

 

And here it is on the inside - 

That copper washer and the head of the rivet both are about 1/2" in diameter.  I added larger washers under the copper ones to spread out the pressure and/or keep the little copper washer from pulling through or something.  The coolest thing was that I learned that you use the round end of a ball-peen hammer to flatten out the end of the rivet!  I never knew what you would "traditionally" use that round end of the ball-peen for.  

Finally, I cut and finished a piece of masonite to put in the bottom (on the inside of the bag) to give it a good, solid base.  Here that is, on the outside, obviously - 

Done, and in time for the auction.  Even if it wasn't quite how I had envisioned.  I actually enjoyed the problem solving challenges of this project, except for the fact that it was a bit too down to the wire.

The real frustration/self-questioning came when there were three minutes left in the section of the silent auction that the bag was in.  There was only one bid on the bag, and that was for the starting bid of $15!!  I was flabergasted, after putting all that work into it.  So Eric encouraged me to bid on it and just get it back, which I did after one other bid by that first bidder.  That was a crazy blow to my creative ego.  But luckily my wise women knitting council came through again this Monday and pumped me back up with their outrage and encouragement.  At their suggestion I will either keep the bag for myself, put it up for sale in my (still empty) etsy shop, or donate it to the junior high auction next spring.  

On the other hand, my fused-glass windchime in the auction went for the "buy it now" price of $45, which I think was actually much too low.  (I am terrible at pricing my own work - after it was too late to change the value for these auction donations an awesome woman who works at the glass supply shop suggested a value of $60-$75 for it...)  The time spent on the windchime was a fraction of that spent on the felted bag!  I don't think you can ever get fairly compensated for your labor/time spent on a decent-sized knitting project....

The Hot Seat

I have finally finished my felted seat pad that is the gigantico version of the hot pad that I made recently following a pattern in the "Alterknits Felt" book.  Once again, I forgot to take a "before" picture....grrr.  This looked like a large sheet of colorful bubblewrap before it was felted.  All of the circles were originally domes.

For the record, this piece started out 16.5" wide by 19" tall.  After the first wash it was 14.25" x 14.5", and after a second wash it ended up 13"x13".  It is pure luck that the stripe pattern that I wanted to do worked out to be a perfect square.  Knitting shrinks more vertically than horizontally when you felt it, as proven to me by this piece!  And I guess you can see why I will call this "the hot seat".  I was lucky that my yarn stash included all of the fire colors that blended together so well.

I am finding that my knitting-while-riding-my-bike (on the trainer, not down the street, in case you missed that earlier blog entry!) exercise plan is working out quite well.  I'm getting more knitting done.  And even though the darn Wii said I gained weight yesterday and today, at least I know that I'm exercising!

Felting Project Blooper

I love felting knitted pieces.  It is satisfying to transform a loose, floppy piece of knitting into a thick, substantial piece of material or a soft but sturdy object.  "Alterknits Felt" is a book full of inspirational projects, and the CRAFT: podcast happened to share the pattern for one of the projects in that book called "Hazel and Maude Pot Holders".  That inspired me to try making one of the pot holders to give as a Christmas present.  But it took me TWO tries before I realized that the "blister stitch" pattern was turning out like a rectangular grid rather than a honeycomb because I didn't follow the directions and stagger the different rows/sets of color.  GRRRR!  Dumb mistake.  So here's the first pot holder....

Another really frustrating thing about this piece was that the edge is an attached i-cord trim.  There ended up being way too many rows of trim along the sides, so the edges were/are wavy.  I picked up and knit on every row, and I guess I should have done every other.  The instructions don't specify, darn it.  That's why this pot holder doesn't have straight sides and isn't square!

I tried another pot holder, this time picking up every-other stitch on the sides for the finishing trim.  It's the one on the right below, and I think that worked out perfectly.  Then I had my "DUH!" moment, realizing that the pattern shapes weren't circular because I wasn't staggering the rows, which is necessary to make the blister stitch pattern work correctly when felted.  Won't make that mistake again!  Luckily my stubborn streak, combined with curiosity, causes me to keep doing a project over until I get it RIGHT.  So the third time I came up with the correctly knit pot holder.  It is on the left, obviously:

It's interesting to see the two patterns side by side.  

Here they are after the first felting in the washing machine:

And here they are after a second felting:

Wahoo - finally succeeded!  I like the look of the mistake one, too, but it was so satisfying to learn how to get that honeycomb pattern.  These two were knitted entirely in Lamb's Pride Worsted, which is my personal favorite felting yarn.  It is fuzzy because of the mohair, but I like that.  I just had to give the pot holders a little haircut when I was done felting them.  Now I am going to make a larger version.  I need two more seat cushions/mats for our kitchen chairs, and this is a perfect pattern for one of them.  I like the fire colors.