Felted goodness

The bowls are pretty well dry, and I was hoping for good light this morning to shoot them in. Not too much luck, as the skies are pretty well overcast, but I did at least make an effort.

Both bowls were knitted using the same pattern from One Skein and Reynolds Lopi on size 10 1/2 DPNs. I finished knitting them way back in November, but I just got around to felting them yesterday. They were both the same size and shape when finished knitting (they made great hats!), and after felting shrinkage, they also were about the same size. I started felting them in my washing machine but decided that it wasn't coming along fast enough, so I dumped them in the sink with hot, dish soapy water and worked them by hand. After a cold water rinse, I blocked them over two different size rice bowls, which gave them two different shapes. One bowl is squattier than the other, with a larger bottom, while the second bowl is taller, with a smaller bottom. Neat little lesson on geometry and how the total volume is the same, but the dimensions and look are quite different.

So what is it?

Ok...so here's the "scarf" that I did out of one of the balls I picked up at the yarn swap last week. This is a ribbon yarn from Caron Pizazz (I keep mistyping it Pizass...bwahahahaha) in the color Meadow. The ball only has 28 yards to it, so I didn't get much length out of this drop stitch pattern, even on size 15s. I'm thinking of frogging it and making it into a small cell phone or camera cozy or something. I could also possibly make a really skinny belt or scarf if I took the number of stitches down to like 3 per row (this is 7 stitches). The length now is just enough to go round my hips and have the ends touch.

I do like this yarn, and the colors in it would be nice just about any time of year. I am, however, on a yarn diet at the moment and need to knit from the stash before purchasing any more.

I pulled an all-nighter last night to finish the strip for the Mother Love quilt the mamas are doing for the auction. I was so bleary eyed by the time I finished about 5:30 this morning that I didn't get a picture of it before hubby took it to school this morning. I started over again with only two repeats of the traveling vine pattern and put a selvedge slip stitch on each end to make it easier to seam into the rest of the afghan. I only used one skein of Lamb's Pride Cotton Fleece to make the 60-inch strip. I'll try to get a picture of the completed afghan on Saturday. So I have another skein of the cotton fleece in this beautiful aqua color, and I think I'm going to make a nice spring wrap out of it, probably just using the swatch I started originally.

Two knitted bowls also got felted today and are drying on the counter. They turned out fairly sturdy, and I'll snap pics of those tomorrow too.

Still so much to do and only a few days left. You knew I was going to wait to the last minute for the final push, didn't you? I did...