Sasha Sews...

Felted Lopi Tote: Part Three

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:47:16 GMT

It's done!

Part One
Part Two
Ravelry Link (Sign-in required)

I wound up washing it twice because the first wash made it the size I wanted, but didn't felt it well. I tried a little hand felting and then blocking it, but, eh. So I added the button and the flowers and then washed it again, hot/cold heavy wash, extra rinse.

It looks much better, but it's smaller than I was hoping for. So instead of being my carry-on next month, it's going to be my camera bag. It's a good size for it.

I don't know if I love how the flowers chubbed out in the wash, but it could have been *so* much worse. I think for a first attempt I am going to call this a success.

( Pictures, from beginning to end. )

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Felted Lopi Tote: Part Two

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 20:09:50 GMT

OMG.

So it took a few days to find the time to get the damn thing done. It's a hazard of having three children, two of whom are under two and have been sick. :( (here's part one.)

But it's done. It's in the washing machine right at this moment, and I am so excited to see how it came out. In the end I tossed it in with some clothes on warm/warm (because our water gets hot very easily) and put it in for a heavy wash with an extra rinse and fast spin. I am hoping to avoid waiting for a second cycle :D.

( Here's the before pictures: )

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Felted Lopi Tote: Part One

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 05:16:23 GMT

Last March ... maybe last September, honestly ... my mom and I were buying yarn. And I found this AMAZING, lovely, beautiful, felting yarn.

There were only two skeins left. They were DEEPLY discounted. I believe the store was not going to carry them any longer. I bought them. I started knitting a bag. I got halfway through the bag and realized I had not enough yarn.

So I frogged it. It sat. And became nothing.

I found a new!bag pattern (Ravelry link, sign-in required) that *should* work.

And I realized today that...no. Not. Enough. Yarn.

Well, we had to go to Joann's today, and I figured, what the hell, maybe I'll check to see if MAYBE they have my yarn.

I bought three skeins, because it is apparently a RATHER COMMON YARN. OMG.

Bernat, Felting Natural Wool, 94012 Meadow

Next, I finish the stupid bag. :D

PART TWO

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Sheepy Pants, attempt #1

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:00:42 GMT

Part of the reason we switched to cloth diapers was A) I got over my fear of adding to the laundry I already hate doing and B) I did the math on how much diapers for two, for two to three more years was going to cost.

And then I found out about wool soakers. I mean, have you seen how OMG cute these are?! And that was it. I was 100% sold

So we've been doing cloth for about 4 months now and we have definitely found our preferences, and for the new baby we'll be doing prefolds for at least the first month, and however long it works well after that.

A couple months ago I bought wool for making soakers out of, since we didn't cloth diaper when Gus was a newborn I don't have anything that size, and I don't want to make a big investment *now* since this is our last baby. I decided I would make longies for Charlie since it will be cold for months after he's born and that will hopefully make it even easier to keep him clean and warm - one less thing to mess with. The added benefit of entertaining me while I made them, and allowing me the joy of making things for my baby was just excellent frosting.

I started a pair of Sheepy Pants but my heart wasn't really in it and I was struggling with some of the stitches and so I had some holes and it was lopsided and I got really really irritated with the DPNs on the one leg with the circular still in the other leg and it was all fiddly and I was getting ladders and then my tension was too tight and I said screw it and frogged it and went on to Roger's scarf I've been promising for like three years.

Which was actually fortuitous as it is a simple and repetitive pattern and all knits and purls and cables. I got very very good at reading stitches without having to think about it anymore, being able to put it down and pick it up and at barely more than a glance figure out where I was, and mastered counting rows, finally. (Also, cables without a cable needle, GENIUS.) And my fingers got more deft at the actual movement of knitting. I have gotten almost quick.

A desire to do lace in order to make a scarf for my BFF forced me to learn the terribly important SSK stitch, finally. I *thought* I had grasped the concept, but found that, no, no I really hadn't so I went looking for a tutorial. Thank God for the video in both styles, I knit English and too often a tutorial is only in Continental and then I am lost.

I also looked up M1R and M1L or M1B and M1F while I was at it, and suddenly the gusset made way more sense.

( So yesterday I set about making a pair of Sheepy's. )

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