A little felting for Friday

I recently traded a bunch of sock yarn on the Knitty Board for whatever anyone would send me that would felt. It isn’t like I didn’t like the sock yarn, I did, but I had ten in one solid colorway, and how much brown sock yarn does any one person need? I got 4 skeins of teal Lopi in a trade, and I wanted to so some felting. So I made some mittens for Dulaan, and a bowl because I really want to get good at felted bowls so I can make a ton for Christmas pressies. Mitten pattern was the Fulled Mitten from Knit Mittens! (Storey Publishing) and the bowl was a vague interpretation of the large felted bowl in One Skein. I didn’t have any size 15 DPNS or circs, so I used some size 17s that were laying around from an earlier project.

Here is BB with the felted items. I quite like how the Lopi felts. All in all I think the mittens were a success, although I didn’t like the pointy fingertip. If I do the pattern again I will change the fingertip decreases. But they are thick and warm and will be good for Mongolia.

I had a few issues with the bowl as well. Even though I washed it forever and there is almost no stitch definition left, you can still see the decrease lines in the bottom. Not a huge deal, but I think I would be happier with smaller bowls with less obvious “works”. It is a little floppy too, so I think for my own happiness, less is going to be more. If it is shorter it won’t flop so much. I have a ton of embellishment ideas in my head, so more experiments will be on the way.

Then I cast on some Cherry Tree Hill supersock in the Old Rose colorway in the Garter Stitch Rib pattern from Sensational Socks. So funny to go from size 17s to size 1s overnight

Even with all this knitting, it has been a week about crochet. I am writing a feature for Yarn Market News about fall crochet forecasts so have had a great time interviewing designers and store owners. This week I spoke to Vashti Braha, Kim Werker and Annie Modesitt, Monday I am interviewing Lily Chin. Coincidentally enough, this past Monday I sold an essay to Better Homes and Gardens Simply Creative Crochet which will run in the October ’06 issue. It is a humorous take on the fact that crocheters seem to have become the second-class citizens of the fiber arts world.

I have always done both knit and crochet (and needlepoint, and macrame, and sewing and ….). Mostly I knit, but from time to time the crochet hook calls me, and actually I REALLY love doing projects that have both knit and crochet components. But it seems to me that crocheters get the hairy eyeball at SnBs or the LYSs of the world, and I don’t know why. Ah well, if I ever figure it out you can read about it in the July issue of YMN, and of course my silly pondering in SCC.

Other than that, I am working on a scintillating feature on short term financing for contractors, and a country antiques round-up. While I miss the knitting time, it is a good thing to have a lot of assignments lined up, so that the cash flow doesn’t choke and die.

And lastly – a fond farewell to HandKnits in Englwood, NJ – they are closing on Saturday, and I will miss them.