Simon's Felted Coasters: Before & After

I finished Simon's coaster set yesterday. Here is the knitted set:

To felt them, I threw them in the washer (in a lingerie bag to protect them and keep them together) with an old pair of jeans, a cup of detergent, and lots of hot water. The process takes a while, because you have to pull them out and check to see if they're the desired size every five minutes or so, and you can't let them stay in there for the spin cycle or the cold rinse cycle. This works a lot better when you're not using a coin-operated machine! But my washer is cheap, so I only spent about $2. Next time I might try just doing it in the sink, although the thought of standing with my hand in a piping hot sink of water agitating the coasters for a half hour isn't that appealing, either.

When I finished knitting Simon's coasters, I started in on some new ones for myself. I wanted to make red ones to match my red and white living room. The red yarn felts a little differently than the brown, so I'm not sure if these are going to work out as well. More on that later.

The final coasters are below, to be presented to Simon ceremoniously at his pre-New Year's brunch tomorrow. Or unceremoniously in the car on the way to IKEA today, if I can get him to come with me. Gotta wait till he wakes up at 1pm.

Christmas presents and Christmas babies

Christmas has come and gone, and still no coasters for Simon. They're all knitted, just need felting. Sunday is my deadline, when I'll be at his house for brunch. In the meantime, fun with recycled wrapping:

And fun with baby sweaters at Christmas!

Reagan liked his so much he puked on it!

Farewell, fair sweater

Reagan's sweater finally got sent last week. I can't wait to hear how he liked it. He's been pretty busy, though, what with being baptized this week and all.

Knitting Night, 12-11-2007

Tonight was knitting night. Angela, Sarah, and Mollie came over for some fun times. Sarah brought some homemade cookies that she warned us looked like Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo, but I'll let you be the judge. Regardless, they were tasty. She says they looked much more like Mr. Hanky when they were uncooked, and were all glistening moist.

She also showed us some lovely mittens she had made. She felted an old wool sweater from Old Navy, cut out mitten shapes from the felted sweater, and sewed them together. What a lovely project. I wonder if I have any old wool sweaters laying around... I'd love to have long mittens that cover my chilly wrists when I walk to the light rail each morning.

I FINALLY finished Reagan's sweater tonight. I hope he hasn't outgrown it. I sat on the unfinished project for weeks, waiting for a chance to get to JoAnn Fabrics to buy some buttons for it. I plan on mailing it to my little guy tomorrow.

After that, I picked up my knitting on Simon's coasters again. If you remember, I used this pattern for myself last winter. I'm pretty pleased with the product after all this time, so Simon is getting a set for Hanakah. Probably not one for each day, since eight is a lot, but I hope to do at least six.

Before they're felted and shrunk down to size, they also make good pasties.