Monday 4 March 2013

Weekend WIP

I posted some of my attempts at knitted roses in my last post, but they weren't really done justice. I have been knitting a few here and there for a year now; I finally measured my chair, worked out how many I would need to cover it and realised I was a third finished. So, having come to the end of six skeins of Cascade, I decided it was time to felt and see if they were going to come out the same size as the pattern suggested, since I don't have a toploader and wasn't about to felt them by hand.

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All lined up and looking pretty. I had to stitch up six at knitting group which was a real bind - I must force myself to do it as I go from now on. I am usually quite good at sewing in ends etc as I go but I can turn out two or three of these an hour if I don't stop to sew them up and it's a bit addictive.

They went in on a 60 degree quick wash, no spin, in a zipped up pillow case with a couple of towels. As per usually, the pillow case managed to unzip itself partway through the exercise but luckily, this didn't seem to have much of an impact.

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Some of them turned themselves inside out which made me worry a bit when I started reshaping, but the beautiful thing about felting is that it almost always behaves itself. All those curling edges I had worried about were miraculously felted straight and in no time at all (quite a long time, really, when you're handling freezing cold, wet fabric on a dull March day) they were reshaped and drying on a tray.

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I fear they may be drying on the tray for some time; but I'm in no hurry.

I am very pleased with my colour choices. I have some purple Cascade in the wings and some pale pink leftover from the Cherry Blossom Bag, but I am now starting to think something just in reds and bright pink might be preferable. I need to dig it all out and have a look, really. I need 86 roses (I think) to do the front of the chair, and another 40 or so to do the back too, so I could always do purple and pale pink for the back. It would use up the Cascade.

Naturally, now I have successfully felted them I just want the chair to be ready immediately. This is a good long-term project of the sort-of modular variety, though, so I think I will stick to knitting my 4-ply cardigan for this month and maybe wind up some Cascade to keep handy at work for when I am hanging around waiting for a governors' meeting.

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