Kiss My Knits!

The pink bag emerges from its chrysalis.

I took someone’s advice and decided to make one more thing for Simucon. Besides, I wanted a hat break.

A felted pouch, suitable for dice or whatever.

Here it is before felting when it is roughly the size of a tall hat. Here it is after felting. CD and homemade 8-sided die earring for scale (yes, I’m that geeky). Suitable for dice or cards or whatever your little heart desires.

Costwise, it should really go for $20, but I can probably drop to $18. We’ll see if it sells. If not, I like it, so maybe I’ll use it myself. 🙂

I decided to go ahead and do little gifts for my daughter’s “dream team” of experts at her school.

Here’s one. Cat for scale.

I’ll put a pin back on it and include a note reading, “Thank you for helping my daughter to bloom.” I’m making more, but not as large and not as vibrant, since I’m not sure just how staid the teachers may be.

Hm. These might be good for Simucon. Whaddya think?

Because we get a fair number of questions about how much an item felts vertically and horizontally, I thought I’d post up a swatch that I did this morning preparatory to doing a felted bag for my kid’s kindergarten teacher.

Read more…

And now, finally, the last remaining niece has a felted purse.

So now that’s
Kristina
Alyssa
Brianna
and Alex.

Now my husband’s family can stop having children, thank you very much.

For verily, she showeth her fashion sense at every turn!

You may remember the bag I just knitted. Well, while in Maryland, I also showed everybody a pendant I had made while in St. Louis. Pictured left, it’s a lampworked glass bead between two Swarovski crystals, on a piece of silver wire that I shaped into a spiral at the bottom. I was picking up supplies for the jewelry seminar I was doing as part of the Simucon career fair, and I saw the bead and just had to have it, so I made this during the seminar to help show people ways to work with wire.

Ceosanna saw it and said, “You know, that perfectly matches that bag you’re working on! I bet it would look great if you put it here, on the pocket, just as a little dangle.”

And you know what? She was right!

Now I’m actually glad that I screwed up the other bag, because with that addition, the bag has officially crossed over into Super Cool territory.

Thanks, Ceosanna!

Ceosanna, Tessima, this is how that bag turned out. This pic makes it look a little bigger than it is, I think. I could probably felt it down some more, since it’s still a bit floppy, but I worry that then it will get too small. At this point, my options are to have this be the one I send my niece, or use a different bag pattern and just add a pocket into the design.

Thoughts?

ETA: Here’s another pic with a CD case so you can see size better.

So I finished my “I’m stalling” project, which was another bag. I did this to a) use up a skein in my stash, b) see what happens when you use a lighter weight than is called for, and c) put off working on that pink bag again.

I finished it up just before tonight’s DR wedding/party/free-for-all, and decided I’d pop it into the washing machine for a quick felt. So I did, and it felted to just about the size I wanted! But then I thought, well, I’ll just give it another couple of minutes to firm it up just a little more.

But then, as always happens, I gave my DR event my full attention and totally forgot about the bag in the washing machine. Which really shrank. It’s now a handbag in the literal sense, in that the body is just a bit bigger than my hand.

On the up side, I did learn that you can sub in a lighter wool, if you’re willing for it to be a little floppier and to felt down a little more. And as I’d hoped, the Araucania Nature Wool, which has a great variation in color within the skein, gave a nice effect. I think it looks kind of like blue tiger striping. It’s a little more subtle in person than in the picture. Hard to believe that this is the same pattern (more or less) as the Tessima.

I have two skeins of this yarn in blue-jean colors, and may knit it again, holding it double to see what the extra bulk does for the size. There’s enough of this blue left over to add in a nice, rich stripe or to do the handles with it. I’m considering these ‘mistakes’ to be exercises in learning about what the materials will do.

All in all, it’s not the effect I thought I’d get – but I’m still happy! I’ll add some kind of closure, and it’ll make a nice little kicky purse.

Tomorrow, I start on the pink bag again and do another DR wedding.

Soap volunteers, I’m sorry, I’m going to need to cancel the soap. Tessima was my table buddy for Simucon, so I need to step back and think about what I want to do on that front.

It seems like every GM I wanted to see at Simucon won’t be there, for one reason or another.

I already miss the recent off-staff people. Sigh.

Okay, everybody who’s saying “make me something!” It’s time to put your money where your mouth is.

I need volunteers to test something. I’m making – and this is not a joke – felted soap. No, I am not insane.

What’s felted soap? Well, it’s a little bar of soap covered in wool roving which is then felted around the bar, thereby encasing the soap in a little scrubber. I’ve made some for me and some for my mom and I just love it. The covering makes the soap suds up really well, and it foams through the casing like shower gel on one of those plastic scrubber things. But it’s got enough nap to it that it’s also exfoliates some. Nifty!

Right now I’m experimenting with different kinds of soap, different designs, and different thicknesses of covering. Here’s an example of what it looks like before (covered but not yet felted) and after (felted and drying.)

What I need is a few volunteers to let me mail this stuff to them and have them try it out. Now, you know I’m a GM, so I’m used to taking blunt criticism from my peers. So you’d need to let me know what you like and don’t like about it. Too rough? Design coming off? Soap coming out? Feels great? Suckiest soap ever? You get the idea. If I can get the kinks worked out, it’ll be one more thing to put on the table at Simucon.

If you’re interested, let me know. Also let me know if you’d prefer rose, jasmine, sandalwood, or Emerald Mist. I might do some regular old Ivory, just to see, so you can specify that too. 🙂 I’ll mail you a sample. Try not to let it sit in water – we don’t want it melting too fast, or God forbid, mildewing!

Thanks!