Felting In A Front Loader

I've recently became the proud owner of a front load washer and dryer set, I absolutlly love my new machines they are wonderful for washing clothes which is there intended purpose. However a secondary purpose for a washing machine to a knitter is felting and felting in a front loader is quite a bit different then a regular washer.

I learned a hard lesson when I felted my first project which was mittens, they felted closed and I had to spend an hour opening them back up. What I learned is that because the front loaders have a spin agitation vs. a back and forth agitation the cetrifical forces in the front loader aided in felting closed my mitten. I think some experimentation with spinning speed is needed. I plan to spend this weekend figuring out how to sucessfully felt in my front loader!

Well....

Okay, beacuse Laura has read this blog and I feel the need to explain what happened to the wedding present knitting project (only eight months ago) and because I feel comfortable with the fact that Laura will more then likely laugh at this, I'm going to admit to the calamity! I was attempting to knit a neat felted bag of blue for my friend that loves blue and knitting. After knitting the sack protion of the bag I tossed it in the washer to felt and when I took it out found that it had shrunk WAAYYYY more then anticipated. Yes I know I should have knitted a test swatch, but I'm too much of and engineer to do that! Anyrate what I got was an oblong bowl looking thing and thought well I'll give it to her anyway maybe she'll find a use for it and I filled it with money I figured at the very least she'd laugh at it and say "what the heck is this" which would then be followed by "yeah money." And becasue I havn't yet learned to enjoy my knitting desasters I took no pictures.

Spinning!!!!!

It's very fun, here's a picture of my first pound of wool in the process of being spun. I made my own bottom whirl spindle and is spins really nice but it's a bit heavy. I now have a top whirl that I aquired from my mother-in-law who bought all the stuff for spinning but never had the time to actually learn. I'm addicted now!

Well....

I got one and a half bugs done and my sister-in-law changed her mind on the window treatment. So now I'm just going to make a few bugs and call it good.

Meanwhile, I started a few new projects. One is a scarf out of baby alpaca, knitted in the round so there's no wrong side and becasue I'm too lazy to do true double knit. The other is a wedding present for a friend, who also knits. I don't want to tell you what is it in the event she might read this, I post pictures and more info after the wedding, which is August 26th, yeah Laura!

Bug This...

I've started working on finger puppets for my nephew who's new room is all bugs! The plan is to make at least 10 and pin them to bug net curtins that I'm making as well. I have two bug bodies so far and a half a leg for a spider. I figure I'll have perfected my pattern by the end of this and post it for all to use since I couldn't find a good bug finger puppet pattern myself. Althought it's not too complicated to make your own pattern, but for those who love to follow patterns it's comming soon.