Felting Fun and More

I finally have finished a felted project! I am so terribly excited about it too. It was the OCK's birthday and I had some of the Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky Hand Dye in the Impatiens colorway that I had purchased to make their Hot Out of the Oven pattern and I figured why not make it for my favorite knitter! So here is the set pre-felting:

And here they are all felted up. First the front side:

And now the reverse of both pieces.

I am really pleased with how they turned out. I love how the colors striped in the mitt and the swirl in the square potholder is really pretty. They had a little bit of fuzz on them after they were washed but I just did a little shaving with my sweater shaver and they are perfect! This was a great project for me, I got to do two new things. I had never done I-cord before and both the loops on these are done with I-cord and then the top of the mitt is closed by doing the Kitchner stitch.

I also finished the first sock out of my Regia yarn that I bought a while back. I had taken this ball out to swatch it because I wanted to knit some socks on size 2 needles but in the end I went back to my standard 3's. (This is the yarn my hubby stayed up super late to untangle for me.) It was terrible to knit. Bleh. I have since washed a swatch and it has softened some. I haven't put it through a washer load with fabric softener so there may be some additional softness to be obtained. I did the double weave stitch with my basic sock pattern. I do like how this sock looks but it may take me a bit before I knit up the second sock only because I really dislike how this yarn feels.

I was fortunate enough last Thursday to get my second installment in my Socks That Rock Sock Club. This is a beautiful yarn, it is their new Silkie Socks That Rock yarn and I love it. It is 81% merino wool and 19% silk. I have started knitting up the pattern since it was toe-up and I was looking for a better feeling fabric after the junky Regia sock. I sure got what I wanted. The fabric is lovely and soft. I am doing the pattern as it is written. I started out originally knitting this with my basic toe start but I decided to give their toe a try since I have only done the toe that the OCK wrote for me in my basic pattern. It turned out really well. Although they alternated the increase row with a plain stockinette row so I think the sock is turning out pretty pointy. I did slip it on this afternoon and it looks alright once it's on my foot, it just is a bit odd looking when it is off my foot. This colorway is Walk on the Wild Tide and the yarn will be coming out in a few more months I think.

So I had been trying to not buy any more sock yarn since goodness knows I have enough already, but I am terribly weak and I caved in to the magic of the internet buying process and bought some more delicious yarn from the Loopy Ewe. This is Panda Cotton in the Baby Blues colorway. This is nice, stretchy yarn.

And I also bought some of the Louet Gems yarn in the Teal colorway so that I can make Cookie's Twisted Flower Sock that I bought the pattern for at Stitches. I already had some yarn from the Yarn Place that I was going to use, but I figured I would get some of the Louet yarn that Cookie used in the sample sock since I didn't already have some. (There's always a reason...) I believe I am going to knit this top down as written because I really dig the heel on this and while I am doing a heel flap toe up with the STR sock this month, I don't know if I am clever enough to reverse the chart on the heel so I will instead just knit the pattern as written! (I think this is next on my list if I still want to avoid the Regia..)


Also from the Loopy Ewe, I got some lovely Apple Laine yarn in the Bubblegum colorway. I really love the shine on this yarn. It is slightly fuzzy from the mohair in the yarn but Wendy didn't mention this to be particularly bad when she made her Apple Laine socks so I am not going to even worry about it!

I was out shopping with my friend Cynthia last weekend and we paid a visit to Purlescence Yarns. Since I had recently purchased my Panda Cotton, I was pleasantly surprised to discover Panda Wool so I decided to give it a try as well. This is the Misty Greens colorway:

Cynthia and I had taken a free class at Knitting Arts in Saratoga that morning and on our way out, I was tempted by this lovely shawl kit. (Another attendee to the class had used her kit to do a scarf that was made using Tunisian Crochet so I might have been swayed by that). At any rate, here is the list of yarns: The fuzzy yarns on the left are Classic Elite La Gran Mohair in the colorways 61520 Blue Topaz and 6592 Lupine. The yarn at the top next to the mohair is Classic Elite's Princess yarn in colorway 3409 Proud Peacock. The ribbon yarns are Tahki Stacy Charles Tahki Select Lucky in colorway 6196.

There were more yarn purchases this weekend (it was quite the tour of yarn shops on the Peninsula!), but I think this is entirely enough of a show of my consumerism for now!