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Last night as I was casting off the 183 stitches on the secret knit I was watching my hands. I wasn't thinking about casting off my hands were just going through the motions. I sat and watched my hands do their own thing and thought how cool it was. It was like they weren't my hands they were someone elses hands.


Instead of pictures of the above I will show you other finished projects.

These are two felted coasters made from left over Auracania Natural wool from Mr. Gnome's sweater. The pattern is from the 2007 pattern-a-day Knitting calendar. This is a Crazy easy knit. The felting instructions said to check on them during the wash cycle. I have a High Efficiency washer, you know front door. Can't really check on that while it's washing. So I just threw them in and hoped for the best. They are a bit smaller than they are supposed to be but still hold a cup just fine. The plan is to make felted coasters for Mr. Gnome's family for Christmas. Yes, I'm already thinking about that. Too many years in retail trains you to think about Christmas starting in August. Anyway. These were done to see how much yarn would be needed and how felting even would work in my machine. Of course I plan to use different yarn, more on those dreams and fantasies later, so that theses ended up a bit small may not mean anything. Regardless they are cool and will match our sitting room in our soon to be house.

My previous attempts at felting had only been with old wool sweaters.

On the left is a project bag made from an old sweater I loved; store bought in pr-knitting times. The top is actually the bottom of the sweater. This sweater fit great, the color looked wonderful on me and it had such cool beading. Over time the sweater got a stain then holes. But I did not want to give it up it had been such a great sweater. So it sat in the closet. Until I began knitting and thought, "Hey that thing is wool, I wonder what will happen if I throw it in the washing machine on hot." I took this sweater and some other old sweaters that had outlived their time and threw them in the wash, turned it to hot and crossed my fingers. What I got was four felted sweaters, one that only kind of felted, and one that actually turned out cleaner than ever, defuzzed and fits like never before. That last one is just weird. These two things are the only things I've made with those sweaters. The one on the right is a needle holder made from the front of a sweater. The gray line was the bottom. The strings are cut out seems.