More needlefelting

Pretty cool, huh? I'm not sure I can make the dozen or so that I originally planned, though. He took two full evenings to make.

But you know what I need now, right?




More colors!

My dye setup (two big canning kettles) lets me do 14 jars at once. I was too impatient to mix up new dye, so I used what dye stock I had on hand. I also decided to wing it on the weight of the wool & therefore on how much dye & auxiliaries to use -- very seat of the pants. But I'll weigh the amount of wool that fits in one jar so that I can be more accurate in the future. (Based on the amount of rinsing that I am doing this morning, I'm pretty sure that 40 grams of wool per quart jar was a wild over-estimate.)

So I dyed three jars each of turquoise, blue, cherry red and fuschia (white Shetland, white Columbia, gray Corriedale/Churro), two jars of yellow (the two white wools), and one jar of black (the gray wool). I plan on blending lots of colors from these primaries. I'll probably dye some more colors, but not until after Thanksgiving.

Not so Dala, but darling.

Yesterday afternoon Gloria Galasso of Tres Hermanas came to my house to teach a class on needlefelting. It was fun & I think I learned a lot.

Here's the little guy I started in the class. I intended to make a Dala horse; I think I've made a Mexican donkey.

It was 20 years ago today ....

What's happening here? Why, it looks like someone is finishing off the ends of a sweater ... and indeed that is what is happening.

But the sweater was finished 20 years ago. Back then I was in too much of a hurry to wear it to bother to finish the ends, except for the ones that hung out of the sleeves or the bottom of the sweater.

For years I've been meaning to do it -- you know, when I could get around to it. Really the ends didn't cause much trouble, except when the long ones came out of the neck when I put it on. But I could just tuck them back in. It was a little annoying, but that was no reason to actually sit down and *fix* it ....




Here's a closer look. Many of the tails had felted themselves, although a scary few look just like they did 20 years ago. I assume those are synthetic blends. This was my third or fourth sweater, and the first one I designed myself, and I wasn't very picky about the accent yarns I used. The main yarn is Lopi Light, and it has held everything in place very nicely.



And here's what it looks like on the outside. I've been generally happy with it except for two things. The sleeves are too long (see folded cuffs), and the round yoke is a little too small. Fortunately the sweater as a whole is very roomy so the yoke isn't constricting, but I've never used this style of construction again.

So there you have it. I should have done this years ago, and I'm glad I did it today.