Felted Bag: The Yarns

Old Wool
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

I've probably mentioned before that sometimes my mom will bring me yarn or other crafty supplies that are discards from one of their volunteer jobs. (thanks again, Mom!) And last year, part of the leftovers included this old fuchsia wool. I knew this wool would be perfect to experiment with felting, and the fun fur yarn that I thought was the same lot number, but wasn't (see photo below), would be perfect to go with it.
I started two weeks ago, this was my breaks-at-work project, mostly. I didn't take any in-progress photos, sorry. I decided to just make one long rectangle, fold it over, and stitch up the sides to make a pouch type of bag. I wasn't sure the best way to add the fun fur, and started out crocheting both together, until I realized that the wool probably wouldn't felt too much if the fun fur was completely mixed in. So I decided to aim for the fun fur to be at the bottom. I single crocheted along with just the wool, then added the fun fur, then back to just the wool, then decreased on the sides a bit and made a flap.
I was very impressed with myself when I actually made a kind of buttonhole in the flap. We'll see how that turns out! I started and frogged the handle part several times, first thinking I wanted it to be round like the inspiration bag, but ending up with a very cool flat stitch.

Fixed Scarf

In a previous post, I whined about making a mistake in a tubular scarf that I was working on. I got lots of good advice both a nice comment on the blog and posts on the knifty knitter groups I'm in, thanks to all! What I finally ended up doing, was taking off each and every stitch of the second skein. It was slow going sometimes, especially because the Cha-Cha yarn is so fluffy, and has extra fringes. So now it looks fine, but short. And as soon as I tie off and cut off the extra yarn, there's a little girl that a short fluffy scarf will be just perfect for.

Not the Same

Not the Same
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

I bought these two skeins of yarn at the same time, and thought they were the same. I know I'm supposed to look at the numbers on the label, and one ended in 39, the other in 40, but all the previous 10-12 numbers were the same. I thought that just meant they were sequencial skeins, but that must mean a different batch of yarn. If it were just that the pattern didn't match I wouldn't mind, but the colors are not quite the same, either.
One skein makes an ok length scarf for a young kid, and I think I know just the kid that would appreciate this scarf. So that part's ok.
But now, my dilema is to get the rows of the new skein off the loom without completely unraveling the whole scarf. Please let me know if you have any advice for me! TIA!!

Knifty Knitting up a storm!

After scouring the internet for patterns, I ended up making the first scarf just like my cousin had shown me. She said two skeins of fun fur, in the round on the blue loom. It was an easy way to go, and it was very quick. The photo was taken one week after the scarf was started, and as of today, it's all done but the tying off. I have to go look up how to do that again. ;p
One great thing I learned this week is that I can loom while we game. We're big gamers in our house, me and all my guys. And I'm talking hard core "geek games", the kind you have to go to a specialty store to find, not the old monolopy kind. And it's always been a little hard for me that I can't multitask while we game, creatively, I mean. It's too space consuming to try to bead at the table, anything else would require more concentration than I can spare (in order to kick butt in the game!). But at a recent game convention, I saw someone with some hand stitching, and it made me think to try looming. It worked great. So if you are at a game convention somewhere and you see some geek lady looming, come say 'hi'.

Shopping

I can scratch part of one resolution off the list already! (The easy one)
I purchased the round Knifty Knitter looms today and some yarn, with the money Grandma gave me for Christmas.
My cousin, LK, was visiting Grandma over the holidays with her folks, and she uses a loom, too! She uses the small round loom to make scarves, and uses fun yarn, and they are georgeous. I had already planned on buying the round looms, but she inspired me to buy some fun yarns!
Michael's had a good sale on fun yarns, I got the ad in an e-mail. Some were $2 a skein, and some were $1 a skein, regular price $4.39-5.99. So I got two of three skeins, and three of one, I'm going to try to make a hat!
All the yarns are so cool, and interesting. I'm almost imtimidated about them, some don't look like yarn at all, in the tradional sence. And me being so new to the yarn lifestyle, these yarns would have been out of my league if my cousin hadn't recommended them, and if they hadn't been on sale! So happy looming to all, and to all a good night.