Off the Needles: Felted Mittens

Too late to wear these this time of year, but they are finished. I wanted something warmer than the acrylic yarn mittens that I've had for years so I knitted these out of heavy wool. I can't recall the yarn I used...might be Cascade 220 wool.

I'd completed all but the felting while it was still cool enough to wear them, but then realized that one was a bit longer than the other, always a possibility when making 2 items separately. (That's why I always knit both sleeves at the same time when making a sweater.) I couldn't decide which one to fix: shorten the longer one or add a couple of rows to the shorter one. So I set the mittens aside. Later it occurred to me that perhaps the felting process could be the solution. I felted the longer one a bit more than its mate. Since I made them to wear when walking in the woods in winter, I decided that this time practicality would win out over perfectionism.

Recyling Project: Videotape Clutch Purse

I'll be demonstrating "green" fiber craft project at this year's Carolina Fiber Fest. I knitted this clutch purse out of polyester silver yarn and black videotape.

My work is on the Handy Hands website!

My beaded crochet bag was picked for the Handy Hands gallery website to showcase items made with Lizbeth threads:

Off the hook: Striped Afghan

This is a project I started a while back and hit a snag and put aside. The pattern is Lion Brand Yarn's "Wind Chime Afghan" in Vanna's Choice yarn. You crochet the strips and then connect them together with a chain of stitches. My first two strips went together find, but the next joining ended up with one strip longer than the other. At that point I put the project aside. Last week I took it up again and decided to bail on the connecting chains and just crochet the strips directly to each other. This meant unraveling strips I'd already finished and buying more yarn to make up for the reduced width caused when omitting the chains. But I probably didn't spend much more time on this than I would have if I'd battled with the pattern as written. And, most important, the project got finished and out of my UFO collection. I really like the way it turned out.

I Won!

I entered Piney Woods Tatter' Valentine giveaway and won 3 balls of Valdani perle cotton, size 8, in 3 different shades of red, plus beads and buttons. Rachel, the Piney Woods Tatter, makes beautiful tatted brooches with button centers. Now to decide what to make out of her generous gift!

Another ancient project finished: tatted pillowcase edging

Finally finished this tatted edging and finally sewed it onto a pillowcase. I guess I started this project 3-4 years ago and never got around to completing it until recently. The pattern is "Leaf Braid" from Mary Konior's Tatting with Visual Patterns, which she described as the "easiest pattern in the book." I doubled the pattern on itself so that two rings of the braid connect into a wider braid. The thread is size 20 hand-dyed thread in a colorway called "Candy Corn." It's been so long since I bought the thread on eBay that I have no record or recollection of who I bought it from.

Sweater Models

Here are my friend Megan's daughters wearing two of the sweaters I made and gave to them. It's great to see how they look on real kids for a change.