Finished Object Dance

Thanks for the comments yesterday. To answer a few of them:

The Diamond Fantasy Shawl used two skeins of Lucy's sock yarn, with a fist-sized rewound ball left over, just shy of 1 oz by the office postal scale. This was the full 10-repeat shawl and it measures (blocked) 88 inches across the top and 37 inches base to tip. Note the first skein ran out in the first few rows of the 8th repeat, so for those who want to make the smaller 6-repeat version, one skein would be plenty. I got my pattern through the Knitting Zone, who, for those of us who want it now, have a number of patterns in .pdf format available for fairly immediate download once purchased (okay - it takes a couple minutes for the email with the d/l link to show up).

And, of course, the yarn is available either here (oops the etsy site is down for fixing), or in person at Lucy's shop.

Progress is happening on the 3rd Baby Surprise commuter jacket. I changed my strategy with this one, where I've got so much of the orange red to use up and it doesn't really go with many of the other colors. Every other day I go back to the orange-red, and then on the off days I'm going with a brown or gray. It's slow progress on the big goal of using up all that yarn, but hey.

It's doing nothing for the commuting fairies though. Ever since late June, they've either been taking trains out of the schedule and hoping no one notices, or there are suddenly dozens more people who want to take the same trains I take the rest of the year. You would not believe the crowding in the morning, in particular.

And a note for Melissa, who's having a crisis of courage about felting. Yup, like cutting fabric when sewing, or merging onto Storrow Drive, it's one of those things where you have to make up your mind when you're ready that you're going to take that step and move forward, even though it looks scary and there's a decent chance it won't come out just like you hoped, though it probably will with reasonable care. You have the most control in felting when you're working in the sink by hand with the hot, soapy water and the dunk in the cold. However, I have found that about 15 minutes of such activity is enough for me to bless mechanization and head for the laundry room. I haven't tried needle feling yet, though it's on the list for someday. I did just get my tetanus shot renewed, after all, so that excuse is gone.

If you don't want to run it in the washer, try dryer felting. It's what I've been doing all along. Get yourself some really old towels that won't give off lint anymore, get everything soaking wet, and set the dryer on high. Check as often (or little) as your personal compulsiveness suggests. Resoak when you sense things are drying up (towels and object). Stop when you feel satisfied.

How much effort did you put into making the object in the first place, and are you ready to repeat that if it doesn't go as you like? How much do you want to get to where you want to be? Let these be your guides. And it's okay to say you're not ready and you'll do it later (maybe not on the ramp on Storrow, but you know what I mean).