Tag Archives: felting

Duffers and Hand Felting

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A friend told me about a really fun slipper pattern.  The pattern is called Duffers, and it consists of 19 simple rows per slipper. I used almost one skein of Lamb’s Pride Bulky to make them.

This was an opportunity to improve my felting skills.

So here are the slippers right after I finished knitting them, and before I sewed the seams.  They are simple simple.  You sew down the back of the heel and then down the bottom.

After I sewed them up, they looked like this.

So recently I blogged about the “heart-felt” rings I knitted and felted.  I’d learned from Tiny Owl Knits that I should wring my object out a little and not have it soaking wet.  She also suggested being a little more gentle and not trying to beat up the poor knitted object (my words).

Put that advice with the addition of these:

My sister put me onto this.  These are heavy duty gloves and they serve a dual purpose.  First, I can withstand putting the slipper under very hot water without scalding my hands.  Second, because they are a little textured, they provide additional friction when I am felting.

So I put the slipper under very hot water and added just a little dishwashing soap.  Then I squeezed out as much water as I could and did my glove agitating.  I did shock it with cold water one time.  I rinsed it under cold water, and then put it under hot again.  (The “shocking” did seem to speed up the felting a little.) I squeezed as much water out as I could and continued agitating.

It took me about 10 minutes per slipper.

Here is one post felting and the other is pre felted.

The Lamb’s Pride has a little mohair in it, so they are a little bit fuzzy.

Here they are after I finished felting them.

I had not taken a picture which included Davey’s little feet in a while.  Fortunately, this is a photograph and not a video as he was not thrilled to be in the picture.  He cooperated though (barely), and we got it done fast!

I think I could have felted them even abit more, but I felted them to a good fit around my big ole feet.  I wouldn’t mind making one more pair, and I’d felt them even more.  I like that real felted finished look.  I’m not sure I accomplished that.  However, my felting skills are getting much better!

 

“Heartfelt” Rings and decorating the tree

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School is out!  I’m having fun knitting again.  I’ve got about 8 million things going right now.  It’s a little ridiculous.  I finished a couple of small things though.

I am having fun playing with these “heartfelt” rings created by Stephanie Dosen of Tiny Owl Knits.  She is also the creator of the hexi-puff – for the beekeeper’s quilt.  One of my many ongoing projects.  I don’t have enough hexi-puffs yet for even a baby doll quilt.  But I will eventually.

So anyway.  She put up a free pattern and some fun videos to go with the pattern that explain how to make the rings.  They are very easy to make.  You can make one in less than half an hour.  Here is what one looks like pre-felting (she puts hearts on hers.  I did too, but on the opposite side of the ring, I attempted to put a letter.)

I have made these with Knit Picks Palette wool.  It felts so fast.  I learned some great tips from her about felting though.  She explained that you can felt better with wool that is damp and not soaking wet.  Felting mistake number 1 I had been making.  I’d pretty much been holding it under the water.

Second, she said that a light constant touch – here lightly rolling it around in my hands – works better than a heavy handed touch.  Felting mistake number 2 for me – I’d basically been beating the crud out of my objects and I held them under hot water and then periodically rotated them into cold water to “shock them”.

I know these rings are very small, but they felted almost instantly, and so I wonder if following her guidelines didn’t help me.

I’m still working on making my letters look right felted.

The rings are very fun though, and such a nice way to use up some of my knit picks stash.  It’s also good practice for shaping felted objects.  Here is a finished one on my finger.

We decorated the tree the other night.  It was a lot of fun.  David is kinda doing a “joking focused” in this picture, but he does go off into that artist side of his brain as he decorates the tree.

Davey had a lot of fun “playing” the guitar ornament.  He found it pretty hilarious.

I’m also about done with a cowl.  It’s neat and I’ll blog about it as soon as I finish and take some pictures. It is all seed stitch. I used to really complain about seed stitch.  K1 P1 over and over seems kind of tedious, but I have grown to really like it. It’s very soothing.  I also love how the stitch pattern looks, and how it gives the yarn a nice “squishy feel”.  I will say that I am doing it on size 15 needles, and this does make my wrists sore after awhile, so I take breaks from it.

I’m also working on the Advent Calendar Scarf.  It’s December 19th.  I am on December 2nd.  Day 2.  oh well.

Speaking of December 19th.  Tomorrow is my birthday.  I am going to be 44.  David is 44, and Davey is 4.  Bunch of fours in this house!  Koko is 15  so that doesn’t quite work.  Except, 5-1 = 4 so there you go!