amazing thought here, I actually swatched for a future project. and I even abused the swatch. it’s kind of important though - I’m attempting to make a felted hat and I want it to a) felt properly, and b) fit afterwards.

I bought some Paton’s Merino at Michael’s yesterday (since when do they carry that? and hey, it’s $1 less than JoAnns was selling it for. bonus.) found the working end of the grey pretty quickly, only to find another end soon after that. what the hey? oh.

what the heck? oddly enough, it turned out to be the perfect amount for my swatch. go figure.
so I made my swatch, playing with fair isle (the bottom rows) vs duplicate stitch (the top row).

then I went downstairs and felted it, modifying Zib’s instructions here. I don’t have any bouncy balls of my own, and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice any of dh’s, so I used some film canisters instead (and filled them with water to insure they wouldn’t just float about in there). I made my first shake of the container over the sink, which proved to be a very good idea - apparently, there was too much pressure and it burst open right away. I made sure to “burp” the container after that. after a few rounds, I pulled out this:

the purple more or less disappeared, though it’s slightly (very slightly) more visible where I tried the duplicate stitch. and I can’t tell if the white felted or not (I even bought the ‘Aran’ instead of the ‘Winter White’ cuz I thought it might felt better.) oh, well… I’ll just modify the pattern a bit, I think.

the size didn’t change much (if at all). but I think I need to go up a needle size to get gauge. hopefully there won’t be much shrinkage in the final project.

yes, I’m flooding my blog with photo posts… isn’t it fun?!

Here’s the hats I’ve been working on - 3 finished, 1 still in progress…

Full size and more pics (close-ups, etc) in the gallery

ok, so I’m about a week behind in posting this…
I finished the tank for my nieces last weekend while I was at their house.

more pics in the gallery

on the WIPs front:
* progress is being made on the HP scarf - 1/2 a yellow stripe and then one last marroon stripe and it will be finished. theoretically.
* Eli’s hat is more or less finished - just need to finish weaving the ends in. I had issues with the pompom - the first one came out super tiny and rather sparse. I discovered my fringe-making tool does well for pompoms too, though the first one I made came out a bit sparse (but workable) - I just made a second one and put them side by side. I don’t think you can tell.

in non-knitting news, I went to see Celtic Tiger in Milwaukee with my sister. we had fun. Saturday/Sunday a bunch of friends that I used to work with got together for a craft night in Racine - I sewed a satin binding onto a fleece remnant-bin-find to make a blanket for my sister (or one of her kids) and worked on Eli’s hat. I didn’t get to do much LYS-hopping though. I did poke into Ben Franklin in Oconomowoc - they carry some Classic Elite yarns and some other line that you don’t find in the box stores (as well as the typical box store brands). I also saw the latest Harry Potter movie - I caught a matinee on Friday - it wasn’t too crowded, which was nice.

random knitting-related thought… Kashka was playing with the knit mouse tonight - without me having to dip it in catnip. which means I don’t have to attempt surgery to insert catnip into it. :)

I finished Amelia’s hat last night. will post more details and photos tomorrow. (the camera batteries died). so, I cast on for BIL’s hat. I’m making Tychus from knitty in 4 colors - I made it to the second color and decided it was going to be more yarn than I’d want to deal with right now, so we’ll continue tomorrow.

in WIPs news…
there is some progress being made!
* dh’s HP scarf now has 15 stripes. I made it thru about 1/3 of the yellow stripe on the commute today.
* the niece’s tank top finally has the crochet edging added. I picked up the stitches for the ruffle, and realized I’m confused by my copy of the end of the instructions, so I’m waiting for the library to tell me it’s in so I can double check it and finish it.
* the sock class has ended. and so has any progress on the sock. I made it thru the short row heel and haven’t touched it since. I’m not too happy with how the heel looks, so it’s being procrastinated on. ah, well. we’ll finish it soon, and then we’ll have to worry about second-sock-syndrome.

I think that’s the extent of progress.

in HolSP news… yes, I believe my Amazon wishlist is up to date (at least as far as what I’ve bought. there’s probably a few things that could be added… too bad I can’t add knitpicks yarns to it… or any yarns for that matter…). and I’ve been shopping. Three of the LYS are having sales this weekend, so I’m hoping I might find some deals there to add to the SP gifting. otherwise, I think all my SP shopping is done. I just need to get something into the mail now.

oh, and while out SP shopping the other night, I stumbled upon glitter needles at JoAnn’s! I had to buy them (as well as some of the knitting witch ’spooky hollow’ decor - they were 70% off! how could I resist?)