Full O' Sheep Swatch Felted

Here it is! After a quick wash in hot water. I love it! A great affordable choice for felting. I have an urge to get another color and do some surface work and then felt it again, but I don't have any more colors unless I take apart my color swatch stick. If I did it again, I would go down a hook size or two to a maybe a K instead of the N. Otherwise, I think it looks great!

It is a yarn distributed by Coats & Clark, the makers of Red Heart. I'm told that it will be in JoAnn's stores in February, but until then, it's available online at www.RedHeart.com

Susan, I'm going to leave your question about how to wash wool without felting for another day, but it CAN be done :)

Bonus Post: Stitch Nation Yarn

I couldn't resist any longer picking up a hook to play with this new Stitch Nation Yarn. This is the Full O' Sheep variety. 100% Peruvian Wool. But it's 100% Affordable too! I think it's going to retail around $4.99 a skein. Wow. I deliberately used a big hook, an N/10.mm because I'm going to felt it! Let's see what happens! It's in the front loading washing machine now with jeans and some hot water. I'll try to post a photo later today of the "after". I'm thinking about turning this into a scarf for my SIL, ya know, the one who didn't get the Old Shale Knit scarf because I ran out of yarn? This color is "Passion Fruit" but you can see the colors above, beautiful rich colors.

See more at RedHeart.com

2 NEW PDFs available!

I just added two new patterns to the PDF pattern holdings. The first is the Baby 4 Square blanket. It is made using 4 strands of yarn held together while making simple stitches. It results in a warm and squishy quilt-like fabric. It's an Easy pattern. I hope you like it!

The second pattern is a beginner felting project. It is the Felted Wool/Acrylic Purse. The wool felts, the acrylic doesn't. The bag is made from simple stitches, felted, then the handles and snaps are attached after felting.
The PDF's are $3.00 each and can be found on the right side bar of the page.

Keep voting on that CAL poll on the right! It's getting close, afghans and scarves, and purses are very close to even. There's several more days to vote then we'll get started on the design journey. I've got my thinking cap on! My brain is already click-clicking with possibilities for you.

Free Form Needle Felting with Marsha Polk

Saturday was a great day! Robyn Chachula (pictured below) and I went to a Free-Form Needle Felting Class, with author, crochet designer, and all around nice gal, Marsha Polk. (pictured above). Marsha is the author of Crochet Squared.

Here is my first attempt at needle felting. It's a little key chain! The class was held at Fiberge' yarn shop in Cincinnati, OH. And I didn't leave that store empty handed! Oh no, I had to peruse all the luscious fibers and choose one or two, or three or four to come home with me to sit in my stash indefinitely until I can get around to it.

The day only got better as I took the kids to see High School Musical 3. They loved it. I had to wipe a tear as Troy and Gabriella said goodbye. Followed by pizza and the kids having a camp-out in the living room and bingo, a great day. It only would have been better if Captain had been at home. But I think he was happier to be watching Michigan football than watching Chad and Taylor dancing with Sharpay and Ryan and the gang. Yeah, I want it all.

Mini-tote and Felting Tutorial for sale!

It's more than just an adorable little tote! It's a felting tutorial! This extensive lesson includes details about water temperature, agitation and various methods of felting. The reader learns about the terms used in felting and is led through several swatch practices to gain information about the nuances of felting. Then.... you get this adorable tote pattern! Not to mention a section on recommended reading. Ta Da! Get it at Ravelry or by clicking the "Buy Now" button on the right column of the blog page. It is $10.00.

Chickee's Christmas Gift

I finished Chickee's Christmas gift and I placed it under the Christmas tree, and lo and behold Santa came and filled it with hooks and yarn! I think I was more excited than she was. Oh well, the bag turned out great, I might have to make another for myself...

Of course, she opened the yarn bag right before she opened the gift from Santa that had tickets to Disney World in it....maybe that's why she wasn't more excited about the yarn....

You can't see it in this photo, but there is a felted flower at the base of one of the straps.

Congratulations! and Christmas for Chickee

First.... Congratulations to Haley! Who won the drawing for the first ever E's favorite Things! Haley, e-mail me with your mailing address at: Ellen at GoCrochet dot com
and I will send you your prize! Thank you for participating!

Do you remember that I had planned to make Chickee her own crochet bag including yarn and hooks? Well, I adjusted the Spa bag, made twin handles, didn't taper it, so that it would hold more, and moved the flower to the handle. Here's a picture before felting with a big pair of scissors to show scale (sorta). I hope she likes it, I'm coveting it myself...

Silent Auction Update

Here's plan B:


I'm donating one SPA bag (the grey and pink at right) also for sale on Etsy and this little tote, which I became rather fond of, but it's little, like 7" square.

Keep reading, because there is going to be a "Giveaway" when you least expect it... :)

Silent Auction

My husband's company is sponsoring a Silent Auction to benefit those in need. Apparently, last year they auctioned off handmade items with other donated items. I say apparently, because DH forgot to tell me about the auction until it was already over! So, this year, I was pleasantly surprised when I got the e-mail requesting donated items for the auction. So, I am planning on donating a few crocheted/felted items for the auction.

Uh, the small felted tapestry items I had planned, didn't work out real well...

Now, on to Plan B....

Prickly crochet

Have you seen this link yet? Check it out, it's a tiny cactus garden made of crochet!

http://tinyurl.com/2hbmz8

It reminds me of the crocheted coral reef I saw recently, but I can't remember where....

Anyway, on one of my earlier experiences with felting, I made this felted bowl that I use as a flower pot cozy.

About every 6th stitch on the top two rows, I put a FPdc trying to see what texture would do to the felting.

Felting preview

One day I'm going to talk about felting. I love felting. I don't know why. It's funny because in the midst of the novelty, fuzzy, furry, trend, I always loved the smooth yarns with their crisp stitch definition. But yet, I love felting, where there is no stitch definition. I like it because it is practical. The application of felting I like the best is in purses and totes. The felting makes the wool fabric more dense and so pens and crochet hooks don't "poke through". Look at this fun set of swatches. This is in Caron Felt It in Evening Mist. http://www.caron.com/ It is a stitch of my own design, a variation of a shell that you may see again later. And look at the interesting texture that it makes the felted material. So much of the time you see a felted item with a nice smooth, untextured finish. again, all stitch definition disappears with hard felting. Look how much smaller the felted one is than the pre-felted swatch on the left. For purses, another alternative is to crochet tightly with a smaller than recommended hook, which makes the crocheted fabric more dense, less drape-y and gives pens and other small items less chance of "poking through". That is also why I chose the Tunisian twisted simple stitch for the Tunisian backpack. I liked it because it made a denser fabric than regular crochet and allowed for less "holes".