after felting

Thanks for all of your comments on the Noni bag! I got to felt it a few nights ago in my friend's felting machine or better known as the washing machine. Her washer is great because you can turn back the knob and extend the wash cycle for as long as you need without having use extra water. It took about 3 cycles or 40 minutes for this to felt down to it's proper size. It turned out nice and thick and the handles are very substantial - I was worried the handles were a bit wimpy but I was wrong. I blocked this bag with cardboard boxes cut to size to keep its nice rectangular shape. I know you want to see a pre/post felting size comparison:



specs:
Noni Green Earth Grocery Bag #407
7 skeins of Cascade 220 green 7414
2 skeins of Cascade 220 blue 7418
yarn held double and knit on size 11 needles

miles of stockinette stitch

Isn't this hilarious? It's an unfelted Noni grocery bag - specifically the Noni green earth grocery bag with recycle arrow (#407). I'm knitting it for Webs and while I got off to a good start, it seemed to take FORVER to reach the top of the bag. I thought I was done when you add extra stitches for the handle tabs and then I realized that I had to knit 10 EXTRA rows - ugh. But when I finally picked it up off my lap I had to laugh, cause look how freaking enormous it is! It's like knitting a giant sweater without sleeves.



I'm going to felt it tomorrow, so I'll let you know how small it ends up. It should be your basic grocery store bag size. I'm using Cascade 220 doubled knit on 11's - colors #7414 and 7418.



In other news I also finished another baby surprise jacket out of leftover sock yarn. It's proabaly good to have some spare baby goods in the gift drawer - you never know who is going to have a baby!



I've also finally started a(nother) sweater for Elliott. You may recall early on the blog that I was knitting Elliott a tiny yarn fair isle extravaganza that I designed. I had loads of trouble with the hem and made it about 8 inches before I petered out. While I would like to finish it someday, I just can't do it right now. I had to admit to Elliott a few months ago that it would be better to make a new simpler larger yarn sweater that I could actually finish before winter. So I took him to the great wall of Noro yarn and he picked some great colors. The new plan is to make a noro striped raglan sweater with a v-neck. And I'm motoring my way up the body at a rapid rate. I'm striping two colors of silk garden - 226 and 244 - and because the diameter of the sweater is man-sized, the stripes are a bit more subtle, sometimes changing color within the stripe. I like the looke very much and am sorting out how to keep this look on the sleeves with their smaller diameter. I might stripe 4 balls of yarn to at least get more colors in the sleeves like the body. Thoughts?

spinning goodness

Happy Mother's Day to whomever that applies to out there! Here are some of my favorite flowers for you to enjoy:


My upstairs neighbor gave me this cute little pot of lily of the valley after we had a lengthy discussion about how much we liked them, and if there were any vacant fields near by that we could steal some from. This have such an amazing fragrant, even this little pot fills this room with it's nice fragrance.

On Saturday I finished the last bit of one of the super huge projects I've been working on. The other one will wrap up on the 21st. Then, my friends, I am going to take a crafting vacation. I think this will involve sewing, gardening, painting some bookcases, spinning, dying roving, knitting, biking and sleeping. Hooray!

In the meanwhile I managed to finally spin some of the amazing fiber from Hello Yarn's fiber club. This is 4oz. of Shetland top in the March 08 colorway - Red Velvet. I ended up with about 200 yards of 2-ply worsted weight squishy goodness. I'm still squishing it, even time I walk past it.

baby surprise jacket and nachos but not together

Hi all,
Thank you all so much for all of the lovely comments on the handspun spiral yoke sweater. It completely made my week. Unfortunately since work is still convinced that I am it's full time plaything, I haven't been able to respond to any of the wonderful comments. Luckily the end is finally in site and things should slow down in the next couple of weeks. Of course that means not so much time for the knitting or blogging either. I did manage to whip out a Baby surprise jacket for my cousin who is expecting.



This is my first time knitting a BSJ and the construction blew me away - it's like origami for knitting! It's knit with Misti Alpaca hand painted sock yarn - color #07



In other news you may remember that Elliott and I were having a nacho-fest. We each made a version - I of course went the white trash route, but Elliott got all classy with homemade chips, slow cooked pork, layers of real melted cheddar, olives, jalapeños, green salsa, sour cream and cilantro. This was tasty as well, I have to say. Here's what mr. e had to say about it...