Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The Brown Blob Becomes A Bag

Well, I finished the endless-seeming handles and threw the Blob in the washer. Here it is pre-felt (yawn):


The only problem with these bags is that, because the handles are so long, they get all twisted around themselves in the wash in a bad gnarly way, and you have to keep pulling the (steaming hot) laundry bag out, squeezing out the (steaming hot) water, untwisting the handles and then throwing it back in the wash. Believe you me, this is a pleasant pasttime when it's 97 degrees out. I passed the time while the bag was felting by ironing some shirts of Matthew's, because I felt that I was not doing enough really hot activities at once.

Anyway, the bag turned out fine. Here it is, post-felt:

(I promise more exciting pictures in the future...)
Because this one was knit with Cascade 220, which generally does not turn out as big as Lamb's Pride Worsted, I added an extra 20 rows in the circumference. It still came out smaller than the LPW one, and the handles (even with the extra 500 rows) came out shorter. I also let it go through the spin cycle (which is considered a felting no-no); you risk creases, but it cuts the drying time by hours. Because I like to live on the edge, I always let it spin, and I've never had a crease. Until this time! Oh well, that'll be the back.

Here's what else I learned: needle-felting is reversible! I tried out a gingko leaf on the bottom of a felted basket I had lying around [yes, I have felted baskets lying around, don't you?], and it came out, shall we say, ah, not so good. So I yanked the whole ding-dang thing out. It may be that I'm having some second thoughts about the gingko leaves. The other problem is that I didn't have roving the right color, so I tried needle-felting with a strand of LPW. It worked, shall we say, ah, not so good. I may shelve the gingko leaves until such time as I have appropriately gingko-leaf-colored roving. I have something else in mind for this bag right now, which I will try this evening.

On two non-knitting notes, first, this morning Gus (who got a "Name The Presidents" placemat at Valley Forge) was trying to figure out who was president when he was born. He asked me if it was George Bush or Bill Clinton. After pondering it for a moment [I had not had coffee yet], I said, "You were born when George Clinton was still president." Now that's wishful thinking - One Nation Under a Groove, indeed!!

Second, Gus has to have FOUR baby teeth pulled this morning, so send him some good loving toothy karma thoughts today around 10:15!

2 Comments:

Blogger purlewe said...

hurrah a bag!
big boo hiss about the teeth being pulled.

hugs from me to you!

2:49 PM  
Blogger Liberty Fan said...

Gus!!! I hope the tooth fairy is very, very good to you!

6:04 PM  

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