How it Began: Last March I had a gauge disaster of alarming proportions. The Tasseled Ski Hat from Vogue Knitting Hats to Go became inspired, while in progress, by some side reading I was doing in Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears. Apparently, I was completely taken with her enthusiasm for knitting loosely. The hat, supposed to be a dainty 22″ circumference, ended up 26″. Before you say it — yes, I swatched. I was even knitting with the pattern-prescribed yarn. I was just moved by the spirit of EZ to knit ever looser as I went along.

Luckily, it was my first venture into the world of natural fibers — Patons Classic Wool. I had been saving myself for “nicer yarn” until my knitting was better. (I had not read the Yarn Harlot yet, obviously. Now SP-M shares the heroine’s crown with EZ.) I read up on the felting process and decided that it worth a try, as frogging the seed-stitched pattern would have been a pain, and wearing a giant red wool bag on my head was not an attractive option. So into the washer it went. And it came out like this:

The next felting project was intentional. I made the small felted bag with flap from Felted Knits. I just switched the yarn and used Lopi. It came out looking pretty good, but rather lo-o-o-ng. So I cut off the bottom and made a matching coin purse. (And I thought, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I even THOUGHT of making a freakin’ coin purse! My grandma used to give me coin purses* when I was little and I thought they were dorky then! I AM AN OLD LADY!”) Here’s the first small felted bag (& coin purse): * Coin purses: Remember the little rubber ones banks and gas stations used to give away? They had little bead-chains attached, so you could use them as key chains. Theoretically, anyway — those little bead-chains always broke. And you could pinch your tiny fingers in the clasp.

I made a boatload of those little bags last year, in Lamb’s Pride and Noro Kureyon. Lamb’s Pride felts super fast compared to Lopi. Noro is in the middle. The Noro pic is a before and after.

Somewhere in the midst of bag-making, I wanted to learn to make socks. My wonderful knitting chica, Trish, the One Skein Secret Pal, sent me Socks Soar… and suggested I start with an oversized sock to learn the basics. I made the felted boots from that book with Lopi, and intend to needle felt them one of these days. It took FOREVER for these guys to melt down properly.

[It's about now that I'm getting REALLY ANNOYED that I can't make the text and pix flow together in more aesthetically pleasing way.]

The latest felting project is this Felted Cloche from Knit One, Felt Too. The flower pattern is from One Skein Wonders, but it fell apart in the wash and I ended up just cutting and sewing the pieces. This picture shows the hat with a pair of mitts (not felted) I made to go with it (wish I’d done those in the darker contrast color), and a neckwarmer (not felted). The yarn is Valley Yarns Berkshire for the hat and mitts. (Neckwarmer is Queensland Kathmandu Aran.) The Berkshire felts beautifully.