Felting Finally Finished

Before href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwBjBfFtOBZuWwzTMOz5Pg7XPmEo9W0crPaZqpX4sHSWoihYDGg11Jbw71csVRs5KlHVDgrm4_yCFFvyVW5kXrc2WPTiVGUOVc5ONzAjxYHcKFpltBDBrb7OaeIR94vOeS09M/s1600-h/4-1-07+003.jpg"> After
A couple of points before I get started on the knit details.




The Hawaiian shirt? It was 50's day at work. And ladies, here's one of the dangers of buying things in the men's department for 3 dollars at Old Navy. A third grader came up to me to gush excitedly, "That's a Hawaiian shirt! My dad has that shirt!"

The color in the "after" pictures is pretty accurate.

It took hours to make this post. The pictures disappearing.

I took that photo of the back of my own head. It only took 3 tries.

Felted Beret details:

Pattern: in the book, Felted Knits by Beverly Galeskas. I've knitted other berets mostly without patterns, but it takes a lot longer. I made one to felt before (w/out a pattern) and made it huge. It didn't felt. The wool label didn't say anything about superwash, but it never felted AT ALL. Grignasco Jazz Print. Frustrating. It took a few years before I wanted to try it again. There is an excellent trick to keep the band the right size. You put a line of elastic into a hem in the band. I used .5 mm beading elastic tripled, and I knotted the hell out of it, realized it was too tight and then went back in and cut some of the spare strands here and there until it eased enought to fit. I think any beret pattern knit on bigger needles would felt just as well.

Yarn: Noro Kureyon in 2 constrating colors held singly. 1 skein each. Changed color every other row.

Needles: I forgot already, but they were only 10's maybe. Susan Bates Silverado 16" circ.


For Further Felting: Kitty Pi

Before

In the Interim

Pattern: Kitty Pi by WendyKnits from the Internet--One of the all-time great patterns. I'm planning to felt this again/some more because the sides barely stand on their own. I had to stretch them to come out to the circumference of the trim. I may remove the trim or put elastic in the edge so it can only go so far.

Yarn: Noro Big Kureyon that wasn't very big, stranded with red angora left over from bet socks, then some bits of tan light worsted from who knows where that I had in the stash and maybe something else. Who can remember? It's been a few weeks . The trim is a whole 50 grams of novelty yarn of some kind from the dollar store. The colors in the second picture are fairly accurate. The red angora passed from hot to cool, but didn't bleed in the washer.

Needles: I think I used size 11 or 13. Ah, if I only had a brain. *ponders why the ocean's near the shore.