spin class

I took a fabulous learn-to-spin class last weekend at Lint from John Wise. I really had fun and want to spin some more with all the roving we got but sadly, have had no time. :(

The bottom photo shows more clearly what I made in class: the white is a two-ply Finn wool, the middle two are single plies (fiber from Lisa Souza - I think John said it was Blue Faced Leicester), and the green is a single-ply Shetland wool. As you can see, I've pretty much mastered uneven, thick and thin yarn. But John said to enjoy this phase because as you progress, it gets harder to be inconsistent on purpose. We'll see about that!

round one

This is how the bag looked after my first attempt at felting it. I say first attempt because, as you can see if you compare it to my last post, it's really not done yet. But it's getting quite fuzzy so I decided to take it out to dry and try to shave the major fuzz coming off it so the colorwork doesn't get too muddied up as it continues to felt. My very old and weak clothing shaver is not cutting it (no pun intended) so I'm going to have to find some other way to de-fuzz it - any suggestions?? Lesson learned: do not use Lopi for felting something with an intricate design!

ready for felting

I finally finished adding the duplicate stitch on the farmer's market bag. It took a lot more time than I thought it would because I had to keep my needle from catching on all the stranded colorwork and from splitting the single-ply Lopi.

I'm getting nervous about how much the bag might shrink and wondering if I should make the strap longer. The last time I felted a purse, I kept reading that knitted items tend to shrink more lengthwise, but that was not what happened and the strap ended up being way too long. I'm hoping to get the same results this time. Of course with Murphy's Law, this one will probably end up being an itty bitty shoulder strap! Check back for the exciting conclusion of this felting adventure...