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.



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.



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.



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.