Traveling Woman & Wet Felting Class Projects

Hasn't the weather been marvelous?!? Course, I luv the rain and the in between seasons, Spring & Fall. So it has been nice to have an actual Spring for a change.

So, Paige just finished the Traveling Woman Shawl from Ravelry using Sabrina's Anzula Wash My Lace. sn't it beautiful? Paige did an awesome job. It would also look fabulous in a fingering weight. And we had a lot of fun in the wet felting class today. The ladies made some beautiful flowers.

These are Barbara K's.

And these are Barbara M's.

They are all ready to be embellished and used for purses, hats, to adorn scarves, packages, as pins or barrettes. The uses are endless.

And I have to say, I have never seen a dog sleep like this but Meggie seems to do it all the time. I wonder if she will outgrow it..........

Wet Felting Examples

As most of you know, we are going to be doing a Wet Felting class. I had previously shown you pictures of projects that we will have the instructions for. Here are pictures of the samples I have done and are in the shop now. It is slightly trickier than they would have you believe, but I think I have many of the kinks worked out.

This is the one shown on the felted soaps in my previous post. It is partially needle felted and finished by wet felting.

















That needle felting tool from Ashford is sharp-literally!! But it also made short work of the needle felting step in this project.

It has now been wet felted and is ready to be embellished.

And now it is shaped and embellished. It sort of looks more like a butterfly than a flower. Hm........

This is the project that we will actually be doing in the class. It is shown as the black flower in the previous post.

These are the layers ready for shaping and assembling.

They are now trimmed, shaped and stacked, ready to be sewn and embellished.

And Ta-Da!- finished. I discovered that this type of felting doesn't shrink anywhere near as much as knitted/crocheted felting does. So this sample is larger than I would have liked. One of the bugs that I have worked out.And I have never seen a dog whose ears move so far forward!

Wouldn't she look cute with one of these flowers tied on top of her head. Awwww........

Wet Felting Projects

Boy, what a day today was! We were evacuated for 3 hours while the police checked out an "incendiary" device, which they finally detonated, later saying there were no explosives in it. Yeah, right! And we had a jumper on 18th, I think on the Family Support building. I wondered if it was a full moon but was told by a friend "no, but Mercury is in retrograde". How many astronomical phenomenon do we have to worry about, anyway? Actually, I fear it has something to do with the volcano, which I understand has turned into a second one now erupting. Bless their hearts, let's all send them good thoughts and prayers.


Anyway, wanted to show ya'll the progress on the scrumbling project. Obviously, wasn't able to get much done today but I think it is still looking pretty good.

And remember the felted soaps we did in December? They are an example of wet felting. Easy, peasy. We are going to do a class in wet felting on Saturday, focusing on flowers.

These are some examples and I hope, barring any further unforseen excitment, that I will actually get some shop samples done tomorrow. They can be used as pins, embellishments for hats or purses, barrettes or even to decorate packages. Call the shop for times and details.

And, hmmmm..............I got nothing except.....cute puppy picture!

Scrumbling Again!

Inspired by Jenny Dowde and her Ravelry group, Prudence Mapstone's newsletter and her "A Scrumble a Week" website, as well as the other multitudinous info on Ravelry, I decided to pick up my Felted Scrumbled Purse and work on finishing it.

First I picked out wool that had colors I liked (purple? Imagine that!) and designed the purse. The yarn used is Loft. This is it before felting, obviously.

And this is it after felting. Sorry a few of these pictures are so blurry. They were taken before I got the new camera that I can hardly use. But at least it stabilizes the image.

And yes, the flap was meant to be asymmetrical (she says!).

Then these are the scrap yarns I pulled to make my scrumbles. My intention is to just cover the flap with scrumbles.

And these are the scrumbles I have created thus far. Scrumbles can either be knitted or crocheted and I am using both techniques.

You can make them in small units then join them or you can create one large one, filling in the gaps as you go to fit the area you want it to cover. I am going to be making small ones, tacking them on as I go and creating whatever pieces I need to fill the gaps.

And we're off!

New Merisock and Projects

Look at our new shipment of Merisock! Whoo hoo! This stuff is addicting. And in high demand. It took us 4 weeks to get this shipment in. Evidently, there are about 20 retailers in California that carry Punta but only about 6 of them stock the Merisock. Silly them!!

Now I realize that it isn't everyone's forte, but take a look at these beaded socks that I started 2-at-a-time top down out of the same hank (until the dog ate my needle).

Isn't the color variation interesting? I am anxious to do a garment out of it to see the shading that develops.
Another new project that we started is a variation of the Blooming Buds Shawl. This is also a Jojoland pattern called Floating Flowers and, while she calls it a wrap, I would call it more of a scarf as the finished measurements are 10' X 60'. It uses her Rhythm and any worsted weight solid. I'm using Cloud Nine but I think next time I would use Aurora 8 as I find the halo of the Cloud somewhat distracts from the pattern. Another pattern we will start soon is called Rhythm Hidden Squares. She really does some lovely patterns and also writes some nice sock patterns.And this was our last weaving warped up. Love the colors!

However, the Nikki, the outer multicolor, was a little thick for the 7.5 dpi reed and shredded rather quickly. It really should have been warped on a 5 dpi reed.

This was about as far as we got so I think we will either make it a pillow or maybe full it slightly and make a cool clutch. Maybe with a little needle felting thrown in?

But if you want to go finer, versus the 5 dpi, Ashford now has a Second Heddle Kit that allows you to make very fine weaves or create more intricate patterns. Haven't gone there yet but am looking forward to trying it.

And here is Meggie, shop-puppysitter-in-training. She doesn't look horribly thrilled, does she?

Notice her handiwork on my Birki's in the back? Oh, yes, so very talented!!