Happy Easter!

I've been having some fun preparing for Easter. Another little break when I couldn't concentrate on the Whistler sweater.

I also had some fun with the photo shoot. Troy had conveniently just brought me a bouquet of pink tulips when I was ready to take the pictures.

I bought the pattern for these eggs last year already knowing I would have leftovers from my 2009 afghan to use. Yes, I probably could have figured out my own pattern for the egg shape, but the pattern was right there and it's so easy to just follow directions! Plus it was nice to have something to look at to stimulate some embellishment ideas.

Although the project was pretty quick, it did not happen all at once. It was a few weeks ago that I knit them up over a couple days, in minutes stolen here or there, and at the end of the day when I couldn't concentrate on anything more complicated.Project Stats
Started: 22 Mar 10
Finished: 27 Mar 10
Pattern: Woolly Eggs by Marie Mayhew ($6)
Materials: Malabrigo leftovers from my 2009 RP afghan; buttons on hand

Then came the felting. While I was at it, I threw in a few sweaters I have sitting around waiting for the right time. I probably could have felted the eggs a little more but they're ok. (It's hard to tell how felted it is when it's sopping wet.)

A few days later, I finally got to the stuffing and embellishing. The most fun, I have to say, but also the most fiddly.
From top left, we have a striped egg--but they're not just any stripes. I used a helix striping technique I'd recently read about. You can see in the detail pic to the right that the colours literally spiral. There's no jog from doing one colour followed by another. The colours are all worked at the same time, stacked on top of each other like interlocked spirals. This egg was fun little project to practice the technique.

In the middle top, I knit stripes and then used buttons for flower blossoms. The stems and leaves are needle felted. (More on that in a minute.)

Top right is a small plain robin blue egg. So simple, and yet it might be my favourite!

Bottom left has a knit stripe and borders done with needle felting.

Bottom middle is a plain egg in hollyhock dressed up with swirls and dots of needle felting. (Also in the running for my favourite!)

And bottom right is a speckled egg, done by knitting with two colours held together--the taupe Malabrigo and a bit of the thin green wool rescued from this vest. Again, very simple, but a great effect nonetheless.

And then there is this egg:
I abandoned the pattern and tried knitting an egg in the other direction to make vertical stripes easier. I used short rows for the shaping, and it worked pretty well...except I cast on too many to start. So it's more like a torpedo egg. And then I embroidered it with the feather stitch, carefully placing each colour opposite its knitted section.

Oh yeah...I did one more too. I could call it my measles egg. I knit it in orange and then duplicate stitched some red dots on it.
They didn't stand out very well after felting, so I thought I'd outline them. I pulled out my new toy, a pen style needle felter. This model has three needles for fine work. Each needle is barbed so that it grabs material on the way down and pushes it through lower layers. You set the wool where you want it and just start punching through it. (Keep fingers at a safe distance!)
In the above pic, you can see one dot done on the left, and I'm working on another. The outline didn't end up helping a lot with defining the polka dots, but it was worth a try. It did, at least, add a little texture to the egg.
I had been curious about needle felting for a while now. I wasn't sure if it would be like other embroidery and embellishments for me: ok, but not especially enjoyable. But I have to say that I really liked it. It certainly is easy and fast, and you have a good amount of control. I'll be pulling that needle felting pen out more often when I want to dress something up!

And now I'll leave you with a picture containing just about every Easter cliche I could think of!
As a side note, I'm not normally a stuffed toy person, but I am oddly attached to these two bunnies. They were gifts from two different people the same year and are good representations of our bunnies, (the late) Chocolate and (the still going) Red. (And when you squeeze their front paws, they cluck like chickens!)

Hope you all have a happy Easter!

PS: Last night I finished the second sleeve on my Whistler! Woo hoo!

Halloween Bag

In a recent post, I mentioned a small project that would fill the gap I was having in my other projects. I can now tell you all about it.

While sitting around Red Purl a couple weeks ago, Amy mentioned that someone wanted to buy one of her shop samples: a very cute pumpkin-orange felted bag with jack-o-lantern faces on it. Amy threw out a price and the lady didn't object.

Except she didn't like the orange. (We could discuss that for a while...it's sort of like the lady who like a lovely jewelled American flag broach but asked if it came in any other colours.) She wanted it done in a sort of greyish brown; like tree bark, she said.

Amy said she was too busy right then to custom knit one for her but would keep her in mind if someone came along to do the work. And along comes Christina....

I didn't jump in immediately but thought about it as I was visiting. But before I left I reached a decision and told Amy to let the lady know I would do it. I wasn't sure if it would be worth my time because the materials would take up more than half of the purchase price, but you don't know unless you try. And making a little money is better than making none, right?

So Amy got on it, and after a week or so we had a deposit and could buy materials. The wool Amy suggested for the "tree bark" colour turned out to be the same stuff I'm using for the Woven Cables Sweater and she only had one black in stock: a super bulky. Project Stats
Started: 3 Sep 09
Finished: 8 Sep 09
Pattern: Jack by Kate Gilbert, $5.40
Materials: Rowan big wool (08 black), 1 ball $13.46
Rowan purelife BSB DK (781 brown BFL), 5.5 skeins@$5.85=$32.18
Doubling the brown made it about a worsted weight but still thinner than the black. It was a little wonky through the colourwork, but the fulling pretty much evened it all out.

I got started straight away and decided to time the knitting. Everyone is always asking how long things take to knit, and I really have no idea. But on this project I can say that one half took about 6 hours. I got sloppier about timing for the second half, but let's assume it was also 6 hours. And about 30 minutes to seam it up, and about 30 minutes to full it, and we've got a bag that took 13 hours.

How much would you charge for 13 hours of your labour? (And to keep it fair, you should think about labour you like to do, not the drudgery stuff.) And on the flip side, how much would you pay for a felt bag?

The knitting was pretty straight forward if you don't mind intarsia (I don't). The only real modification I made was to pick up the second side off the bottom of the first side to save sewing the bottom. I didn't pick up the very cast on edge, but went one row up. This left a nice ridge at the bottom which nicely defines the lower edge.

On the other hand, I did sew the side seams. I used the whip stitch suggested in the pattern, although I did it from the right side because that's how I prefer it, and it doesn't change the result.

Normally whip stitch does not get used because it's visible from the right side. Guess what...we're fulling here, so it really doesn't matter. A plus is that it's a very flat seam and you can see that in the final product the side seam is virtually invisible.

The handle is identical to the slit handle I've used on some of my plarn bags. You just cast off some stitches in the middle and then cast the same number back on on the next row. Knit a few more rows and you're done. It tends to stretch out with use, but people just call that a "design element" and don't worry about it.

I haven't fulled a lot of stuff but this went pretty easily. The pattern suggested putting the bag into a zippered pillow case before putting it in the washing machine and I think that helped minimize the amount of fiber that gets into the machine. I know eventually all that fiber will clog something up. (You know it will. Plumbing just likes to clog up.) I will, however, now have to buy a new case for my pillow!

Some before and after shots. They are not really to scale. The first two demonstrate the change that fulling makes, turning a loose and sloppy fabric into a very firm and thick one.

The third picture has my computer in it to give you some idea of the change in size:

Before fulling, the bag was 22" x 15" and after fulling it was 17" x 15". So you can see stuff shrinks in length by a lot, but not much in width. (Not surprising when you think of a sweater you've shrunk--usually you can get it over your head but it won't cover your belly). This is the kind of stuff you have to keep in mind when doing designs like these faces. When you're knitting it doesn't look right because it has to be stretched out vertically, but then turns out right in the end.

In all, I think the bag came out really nicely and hope the person who commissioned it likes it too. I'll be delivering it to Amy on Thursday (there's still time to sign up for the slipper class I'm teaching) and then collect the rest of the payment due.

And how much was it? I know you're all wondering. Amy's price was $100. Materials cost $57.19. If I want to be generous, I can subtract a half ball of brown that was leftover that I can use in the Woven Cable sweater, giving a new total of $50.99. So net profit is $49.01 spread over 13 hours, yielding a wage of $3.77 per hour. I think that's just about half of minimum wage. But it's tax free and on top of my regular job. I'll take it.

Full of Wool

I was going to wait to share this news until I had actually done something with these items, but I couldn't wait.

Let me back up.

Saturday I was doing some things after working in the morning, and was going to do my long-overdue groceries just before heading home. But pulling into the parking lot, I couldn't help but notice that it was extremely busy. Extremely. Oh! it's the day before the Superbowl. I decided no lack of food could make me go into the store that day. I then saw that right next door was an equally busy Goodwill store...but it had 50% off going for it. For that, I can brave the crowds.

I made quite a haul. I found wool sweater after wool sweater that was begging to go home with me. Some days there's nothing but ramie or acrylic blends, but not today. I bought most of them for fulling (the correct term for "felting" an already knit item).

Let's start with this shocking pink number: It's 70% lambswool, 20% angora, and 10% nylon (for strength), from "Lady Sansabelt" (which means nothing to me).

The colour attracted me right away. It is even more shocking in person, but it's quite a true pink. After fulling, I will probably cut it up and use it with other pieces so I got it for the punch it could give to other fabrics.

It was also a prime candidate for fulling because it has several noticeable holes (tsk tsk to the person who didn't care for it properly) and some colour damage on the back (probably from bleach?) which will not be noticeable after the fulling. Perfect!

This next number was desirable for its beautiful fair isle pattern and its sheer size.
The colours are not anything I'd wear, but I'm thinking maybe a throw pillow, or possibly a tote. (Could I possibly use another tote?! Maybe...) This one is from Eddie Bauer and is 100% wool. Should full like a dream.

The next item is what I would call a hideous sweater. From Sag Harbour. (Need I say more?) Also 100% wool. What it has in its favour is a consistent colour and being an XL, it offers a lot of fabric!
It would be the perfect counterpoint to the following huge item:
This almost-knee length sweater coat is actually quite nice. I tried it on when I got home to see if I wanted to wear it a while before fulling it. But it's not very comfortable. So into the washer it will go. The light flecks you see are the very shade of pink of the above sweater. Could things get any better than that? I'm thinking of cutting them into squares and sewing the squares together with edges abutting (but not overlapping). It should work. And then I could line it with flannel in case the lucky recipient baby's parents are worried about the babe's reaction to wool. This item was from Stitchworks and is 66% wool, 20% mohair and 14% polyester.

The next item could be felted (American Eagle, 100% Shetland Wool) but I think I will try to unravel it instead. That is a whole other adventure in reinventing Goodwill finds. The wool is very fine and a little course so I think it would be perfect for my second pair of socks. (The first were more than two decades ago--do I still have to count them?)

And of course, the original reuse of Goodwill items still applies: I have added this same vest in red to my wardrobe. The red one was in a little better shape (not as stretched out) and of course fits into my wardrobe a little better. (I love the red.) I'll let you know how the unravelling goes.

I bought one more sweater, but it has already been unravelled. I will post some process pics soon. With the sale, all the sweaters were $2.50--even the big sweater coat. At that price, I think they are worth buying just for the possibility that I might do something with them. Or just the practice to get better at fulling. It sounds so easy when someone who's done a lot rattles off the steps. But I've learned there's always a lot more to learn than you might think!

Happy with the bargains and the possibilities they bring,

christina