Knittn' Yarns

Felt 1, Unfelt 2

Ahh, the joys of felting. This is certainly a lesson in felting. However I did end up with one great pair and they have a great white strip across them that I just love. In fact I love them so much they are sitting right next to while I type. Being the selfish girl I am, I just could not bare the thought of giving them away.

I have nothing but great things to say about the green pair. I used two skeins of Nature Spun for these mittens, and like I predicted the holes were fixed by felting. You can't even tell I made any mistakes.

Also, my washing machine must have been actually using hot water, because the mittens come out so fuzzy. This was fantastic. I just shaved them down, and hey perfect mittens. As for my washing machine sometimes it chooses to only wash with cold. I have not figured out what kind of poltergeist haunts washing machines, but ours certainly has one. In fact, I won't even wash our everyday clothes in it anymore. It has shrunk items, stretched clothes, and changed them a disgusting shade of yellow. It is just way too unpredictable. I guess that is just one of the joys of living in a rental property.

Well unto the not so good news about felting, the white pair. They just didn't work. I had to use two different skeins, one old skein I had and a new one. Same brand of yarn, but they are from a different dye lot. I guess I expected the color difference, but I certainly did not expect the two to felt differently.

One mitten is insanely small and the other is way to long. I tried to stretch the smaller one to fit better and while it is tight, I did manage to get it to fit me. This means I ultimately ended up with two new pairs of mittens. My hands are so narrow that it worked out okay. I just can not give them away. My oddly shaped hands are the only ones they will work on. The picture really does not show the difference very well, but believe me!

Actually come to think of it the white mittens felted unevenly on each mitten. Half and Half. I have no idea how I managed to make that happed. You would think one mitten would have been made from one skein and the other mitten the second skein. I guess I just like to split things up.

I am certainly did learn one new lesson. Don't ever expect to things to go the way you expect when felting. Also, always check your felting several times during the machines cycle. I guess that is two lessons. It is just so much harder to stretch the mittens once they shrink.

posted by Kelly @ Thursday, January 26, 2006