Thursday, June 21, 2007

Really, I'm not losing it!

My husband watched askance as I put the wet knit "thing" on one box after another. Once I found a good fit, he watched as I carefully adjusted the piece, straightening out the biasing and evening out the edges. He finally asked what I was doing. I told him I was using a box to shape the purse I had felted. He was visibly relieved. You see, he had opened a bottle of chilled white wine at dinner, and I quickly ran to get one of the felted wine cozies to use as a cooler. So then he thought I had completely lost it and was making decorative covers for everything in the pantry!



I made this bag while teaching it as a class at Michaels. I'll show it to you when it's assembled, hopefully after my demo at the store on Saturday.

Monday, June 18, 2007

County Fair Ribbons

My last post title is so ironic; I've done very little knitting recently, though not by choice. I wasn't kept from our local County Fair however! I was so excited to discover a new category this year: Loom Knitting. Then I was crushed to see that while Hand Knitting, Machine Knitting and Crochet all had 20+ classes, Loom Knitting had only three.

(I will apologize up front for the picture quality. The colored canvas of the tent roof made everything look bright orange! I've adjusted the color as best I could. Gotta love digital technology.)

The first class was "Clothing." LOL, a basic hat according to the ProvoCraft directions took first. My Woven Top hat from my book Learn New Stitches on Circle Looms took second.



The second class was "Household." I decided to enter a wine bottle cozy. My daughter chose this prototype because she liked the colors, though I think the colors obscure the stitch pattern that remains even after felting. My daughter chose well, as I got the blue ribbon for it.



For the "Not Specified" category, I entered a prototype felted bag (discussed earlier in this blog).



I did enter a few items in the Hand Knit category, even though they were loom knit. One category was Baby Afghans. The first place and second place winners were beautiful.





This Chevron pattern afghan was also in my book Learn New Stitches on Circle Looms, and took a not too shabby third.



I also entered the Child's Sweater class with this sweater, which didn't make the cut for the book.



I was amused to see this winner for the Youth Novelty Yarn class -- another KK hat! The woman who made it told me she had done it in a class.



This hand knit felted muff would be an easy project to convert to the loom.



My vote for "People's Choice" was the intricate beadwork on the outfits for the dolls. Doubleclick on the picture to see a larger size. I don't think my eyes, fingers, or patience would let me do this!