Erica’s Blog

 Obviously, this is a pile of yarn.  This is a small portion of the Lopi yarn my mom gave me a while back.  For the longest time, I wasn’t able to figure out what to do with it b/c the typical Lopi patterns just didn’t float my boat.  Then, I started thinking about felting.  What if I made myself a felted knitting bag? 

SO, for my first felting project, I’m going to make this smaller tote bag.  Assuming that turns out, I’m going to make this larger bag that looks great for a knitting bag.  They’ll both be in the basic color scheme of the yarn you see in the picture b/c that’s what I have.

Met two ladies on Saturday who each had a gorgeous felted purse in greens, blues, and black.  They had all kinds of fun yarns on there.  This is what finalized my decision to try my hand at felting. 

What IS that long, skinny, tubular thing?  Why, it’s the sampler scarf, of course!  Really, it started out fine, but it ended up rolling as I went on.  I think it’s b/c of the sections of stockinette in between the patterned sections.

Yarn is Lion Brand Wool Ease (wool & acrylic).  The main difference between this and something like a Red Heart acrylic is that it’s softer b/c of the small amount of wool in it.  It’s still washable, so it might even be good for baby blankets, etc.

I’ll have to take it up to the LYS and get advice on how to block it.  At a later date, I’ll post the list of stitch patterns I used.  Several came from Knitting for Dummies, and the rest were free ones from the internet.

Finished Grandma’s throw in time to give it to her while she was here.  Granted, I had set it aside for a while, so I really don’t know how long it took to make it.  She seemed to like it.  I don’t think I’ll work with Lion Brand Chenille Thick & Quick again; it was rather a pain.  Too bad b/c the finished product is so soft & squishy.

As you can see from the detail, the cable went a stitch or two astray at one point.  I didn’t realized it until many rows later.  B/c of how that yarn behaves, it was too risky to frog it and fix it, which is a bummer.  I really wanted this throw to be perfect for her.  Oh, well.  If it’s not perfect in form, it’s certainly functional.  She won’t have freezing feet when she’s watching TV any more!