UFO aka WIP Report May 28, 2006
Posted by merp in Knitting.trackback
You may notice there’s a little list way down at the bottom of my sidebar listing works in progress. You may notice that some of them have been there a lo-o-ong time. As knitting is my hobby, my pleasure, I follow my bliss and start as many projects as are financially feasible, and finish when I get around to it (moderate exceptions made for gifts). Hobbies and deadlines are antithetical!
So here’s an update on a couple of them:
Craftster Circular Shrug: You last saw this as a swatch. Here it is now:
What I love about this project is the clever construction: basically just a rectangle with extra-wide ribbing at each end which is sewn into a circle. You’ll get it if you look at these pictures. I can’t see myself wearing a sleeveless vest, though, so I plan to add sleeves.
So it’s some really mellow knitting and I just pull it out and do a few rows every now and then. Obviously I wouldn’t want to wear it until October or so anyway (it’s wool + alpaca).
And then there were the Fuzzy Feet – the sad, sorry, fuzzy feet.
A miserable failure. All attempts at felting hereby postponed until I have access to a non-coin-op washing machine, with more sophisticated controls.
These were for Aaron, knitted from a yarn I got in great quantity for $3 in the clearance sale section of a wholesale market in southwestern China. The label claimed it was 100% wool, but I am now in doubt. As you can see, the fabric neither shrank nor fuzzed, despite several times through a hot cycle (and several handfuls of quarters). (For a really complete explanation of how and why wool felts, see Fuzzy Galore – also a great article there on how to wash wool without felting it).
There’s bits of lint on them because I tried washing them with denim to get more agitation. Didn’t work. At least I learned to do a gusseted heel.
I still haven’t knitted Aaron anything – now I’m promising him a new scarf before winter (since I, ahem, let Pisco eat a hole in his current scarf), likely to be along these lines (scroll down for the illusion), in manlier colors.
i’m laughing pretty hard at your fuzzy feet.
Have you tried doing the burn test on the ostensibly-wool yarn? If it smells like burning hair, it’s wool. If it smells like burning vegetable matter, it’s some plant fiber. If it melts, it’s synthetic. If it’s either of the last two, you’re probably screwed, but hey, at least you learned a gusset heel.
I had another project, most assuredly wool, that would not hand-felt to save its life, but felted beautifully when I put it in the 95°C wash in our housemate’s top-loader machine. Perhaps you’ll have better luck in a different machine with more heat.
That’s a good idea. I’ll try that. Though with temperatures over 90 this week, it doesn’t feel urgent.