18 November 2007

Washing My Blues Away

I think the gnomes stole some color from my felting project. I knitted a bag, it had lovely shades of blues and pinks- Exhibit A



Then I machine felted it and all the color faded into Exhibit B, the Gnome-napped version.




Gnomes, I’m telling you.

Then again, it was a ball of wool yarn from my stash that I am foggy on the origins of. All I know is it was 100% wool, I started a pair of socks with it, didn’t like them, frogged the yarn to oblivion, then decided to felt the thing into a bag. I'm really glad they didn't continue on to be faded out socks.

What? Did I test a swatch to see what would happen? Uh… no. Why would I do that? To know what would happen in the wash, you say? Hmm, you may have a point there. Ah well, I wasn’t happy with the yarn anyhow.

Then there was this bag, Exhibit C,



Knit with Caron Felt-It in Adobe color.

It behaved exactly like it was supposed to. Of course it felted a bit smaller than it should have, probably because someone got caught up reading a book leaning on the washing machine and let the bag agitate a might too long… It still works as a large clutch. The bag is about 14 inches by 8 inches. I made some i-cord out of sock yarn for a handle, it doesn’t match, but stuff like that never bothers me. I knit fraternal socks, sometimes distant cousin socks, and still wear them.

I went through my polymer clay buttons and lined up some possibilites. Of course, I may have to make one just for the bag, because in the 200+ buttons I have, I can't find one I really like. (Yes, I make buttons for handknits. Because I don't have enough hobbies) Flimsy excuse to play with polymer clay, but I'll take it. Ignore the lopsidedness, they really are round - unless they were square- I was lazy and put the buttons on the scanner instead of making a paper tent and photographing them properly, so I tried to clean them up in Photoshop and just chewed along the edges. But you get the idea. At least I wasn't standing on a bucket like I did to photograph the bags. The trials of being short...

These are the prime button candidates until I make more.



So what was the Bag pattern? Uh, the Wing-It pattern. You know, knit until it looks right, jury-rig the sides and sew the whole thing together. I measure if held at gun point; otherwise I just eyeball the whole thing. I guess that makes me a process knitter, (or an ADD process knitter). I can make something following pattern directions once, after that, well, wouldn’t this part look better longer? And what if I change this piece and swap these out…

I cook like that too. As several of my favorite philosophers have observed, “Sometimes it’s better to travel than to arrive.”

7 comments:

Gabriele Campbell said...

Lol, I have no idea what felting means but the colour change is odd.

I cook like that, too. Just throw stuff together and be surprises that the result often isn't bad at all. :)

Constance Brewer said...

When the wool yarn turns to a solid (felt) when you apply too much agitation and hot water. This is usually an intentional effect, mind you...

The best cooking comes from experimentation I believe. Also the worst. :)

Carla said...

I've never tried felting, but I'd have expected to need specially treated wool if it was going to survive the process without fading. I don't know if it's something inherent in wool or if it's to do with the choice of dye, but wool never seems to be colour fast at even moderate temperatures. Anyway, your faded bag has a charming retro look - why not say it was intentional?

The buttons are cute. What's polymer clay?

Constance Brewer said...

Carla - I think it was a faulty dye job. All I know is when I dye my own yarn, it doesn't fade no matter how I torture it. Somebody was slacking. :)

Polymer clay is a clay made from polyvinyl chloride. You bake it in the oven to harden it, so you don't need a kiln. The colors stay the same, so you don't have to glaze or paint it when it's done. I can't put a real kiln in my house, so this is the next best thing...

Anonymous said...

Maybe you should take up another hobby.....maybe reloading???

Constance Brewer said...

Reloading what, howitzers?

I could do that... :)

Anonymous said...

You know.....reloading ammo,working with gunpowder.
perhaps you could take up smoking at the same time.........