Now Norma Knits

Less About the Bags, More About the Embellishments

I've finished a couple of felted bags that are pretty plain.

UPDATE: The pattern is "The Purse" by Janet Scanlon. 

I got mine at Kaleidoscope.

 

But their drawstrings are a great way to showcase

these good-looking beads.

I still don't have the hang of using my new camera in order to get good closeups. I guess a good manual reading and video watching about the camera is in order, hm? 

There are a couple more little felted bags in the works. It's good knitting while I sit with my foot up. I'm keeping myself entertained with Dexter. Just finished Season 1 and I'm HOOKED. 

I totally need some bonbons and popcorn, though. 

Not A Failure

I was not happy with the way my dark olive green Sophie bag felted. I left it in the washer too long, I guess, and the spinning caused creases. Though I lucked out with the white bag the other day, I don't yet quite have the hang of felting in the front-loader. 

I was upset about it. 

I tried rewetting it, pulling it and tugging it, and steam-pressing it. Still it was no better. 

Definitely not nice enough for a handbag. My original plan was to buy some of those rather nifty handbag handles available at JoAnn's -- probably wooden ones -- and attach them somehow. But this bag was not worth the few bucks to spend on the handles.

I was trying to decide what to do with this thing. I figured I'd have to throw it away or use it as a car-washing rag.

But yesterday I was going through stuff to make a donation to a friend's collection for a rummage sale. I ran across a bin of my handspun yarn. Remember when I used to spin? Me (almost) either! But I did spin wool for a while there, and I have a nice little bin of handspun yarn. 

I gathered some of it up and decided it would make a pretty felted bag. Love those greens!

(Side note:  Aren't the lichens on my rocks cool?)

Then, I don't know what happened -- more rummaging around for the rummage sale, I guess -- and I ran across one of my beautiful Celtic brooches. A spark went off in my brain. 

I tried something.

I rolled down the upper edge of the failed Sophie bag, and put the brooch on the front of it. I arranged the handspun in the bag, and....

...handbag no longer, but coffee table decor. 

It's a way to display the beautiful vintage Celtic brooch that I would probably never wear.

My photos don't do it justice, but to say I don't hate it any more is a bit of an understatement. 

There are some days when I think that there is an artist inside me somewhere, just screaming to get out.  

Oh, hey! Happy Easter.

 

 

 

That Felt Fine (Hey! Knitting Content!)

The other day I made a quick stop at my local yarn shop, Kaleidoscope, and came away with a couple of patterns for felted bags. One of them is a real darling, and I knitted it up in a couple of evenings while watching movies.

I threw it in the washer last night to felt it. Boy, who would have expected it, but the energy-efficient front-loading washer felts approximately 47,000 times faster than the old top-loader I had. I put it on hot, on the Heavy Duty setting, and this is the second bag I've felted in one go. FABULOUS! I used to have to run the old washer through, as I say, 47,000 cycles, to get things to felt. I'm quite sure I used enough water to fill an in-ground swimming pool each time. No longer! We are not kidding about the efficiency thing. Watch out, baby, Imma comin' to felt yo' ass!

I was thrilled to use up some of my stockpile of Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool yarn, too.

"The Purse" by Janet Scanlon

Knitkit.com

 (Skein of Patons Classic Wool, for scale)

Isn't she cute?  I am allowing her to dry just round and stuffed with some tea towels, which makes her look like a coin purse, sort of. I can also envision this purse dried around, say, a coffee can, for a more barrel-shaped bag as is photographed in the pattern booklet.  

I am going to go shopping for some beads or tassels or something pretty for the ends of the purse strings. Cuteness!

This bag is just super-fun and easy to knit, and it would make an adorable gift bag, or a small project bag, or even... a purse. It could be dressed up or down and have almost infinite variations, including being knitted -- as was the shop model and the photo on the pattern booklet -- out of Manos Silk Blend for a really nice, dressier purse. I just happen to have a little Manos Silk Blend in my stash.  

Uh-oh, I feel a little purse-knitting kick settling in around here....

Multi-Tasking Sunday

Today is the Maple Festival parade, and we are cursed with the usual Maple Festival weather -- which is to say, crap. Cold, blustery, spitting snow or sleet. Though I must admit, the sun came out for a few blessed minutes while Mr. Jefferies and I went out to bring the compost out and check on the garden. But I'm not going to bother going to the parade. 

Meanwhile, I've been updating a laptop that was unplugged from the internet for (apparently) too long. It's been stuck on "installing update 12 of 22" for the last.... oh, I don't know... three hours? I think I might have to do a hard shutdown and start it back up again. Oh joy. 

I didn't waste the time while waiting, though. I started a new bag for felting. I've got that felted bag class to teach in June, and I promised to bring a bunch of felted bags for show and tell. When I made the promise, I had forgotten that I had sent many of them to church bazaars and such, last fall. Smart me!  

But I've been having fun making them. Mr. Jefferies approves, as well:

He looks like he's contemplating riding this one (pre-felting) down the stairs, doesn't he?

So about the garden, the poor garden. We've got proof that the cheap coldframe works. Here is what those seedlings that I put out last week look like inside the coldframe:

Some of them are struggling, but at least they are alive.

The ones in the uncovered bed: dead and gone.

I removed their carcasses and chucked them to the side this morning, so that I could plant rows of these in their place:

Red Dutch onion sets, white Dutch onion sets, mixed radish seeds, rainbow chard seeds, and Winter Density lettuce seeds. They should do just fine, even if the cold weather continues for a little while. 

I've made a decision not to bother planting peas this year. I find they are too space-hogging and labor-intensive to harvest, and they are never ready for eating here until about July 4th or later, which leaves me wishing I had that space for planting tomatoes or other things sooner than they are ready, and it's an awkward time to suddenly have a large blank spot in the garden. Of course, I will probably change my mind by the end of next week, and anyone walking by would catch me out there planting pea seeds. Fickleness is a gardener's prerogative.

Sunday Rundown

I've been taking some chiding about my late blog entries, so here I am, gettin' on the blogging stick ("blog on a stick"! Could be a new offering at Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, I'm thinking...) No, I'm not going to Maryland this year, but I am going to several other festivals -- which makes this year way different than last, when I couldn't go to any.

I've finished my run for the day, made myself a nice cup of coffee, and I'll gladly give you a little bit of a rundown for Sunday. Speaking of the run, I did not get to do my third run of Week 2 of Couch to 5K last week, so I stuck with Week 2 protocol for today. I am torn between progressing to Week 3 on my next run day, Tuesday, and sticking with Week 2 until I can run it with absolutely no pain. Since "absolutely no pain" may be unattainable for me, I will settle for "very minor pain," and today was not too bad at all in that regard. So I will see how I feel on Tuesday, and make a decision then. But I definitely see some improvement and progress, and this is good.

I am in a great mood, and I feel strong, because look! The sky is BLUE. The sun is OUT.

It is windy and freezing as all get out, but at least the sky is BLUE and the sun is OUT!

I spent yesterday knitting and felting this whilst watching almost too many episodes of The Tudors.

I thought it would be AWESOME, but turns out it felted looking like green muddy crap. Do.not.like. So I'm back to square one on that project.  "That project" is to rebuild a little collection of felted bags for use in an upcoming class series that I am going to teach on little felted bags. Yeah, I know, ME TEACH? It makes me laugh, too. But Ellen at Grand Isle Art Works insisted that I have some knowledge to impart, so what'm I gonna do but say YES to Ellen? After all, she has a new yellow Lab puppy named Elvis. I am just weak against The Elvis, though I have not yet met him in person. Minor detail. Yellow puppy. What's not to love?

Anyhoo, the Elvis Felted Bag Series (that is not really the name of it, and it really has nothing at all to do with Elvis, though wouldn't that be fun?) is in June at Grand Isle Art Works. It would be super-cool if you are a local and you wanted to sign up. I will try not to sound too stupid and will try to actually teach something. Srsly.

Speaking of stupid: When I said yes to this project, I said to Ellen, "I have a big collection of felted bags of all sorts that I have made over the years, for me and my daughter. I can bring them for show 'n' tell."

Stupid.

Because I had forgotten that I had donated all but four of the bags to various church bazaars and Goodwill over the last year or so.  

So my big collection is only four. Thus, I am in a little bit of a felting frenzy over here -- or I will be, in the next couple of months.  Which is quite ok, because I'm in a GOOD MOOD! And the sky is BLUE! And the sun is OUT! 

And I love my new camera. It's a big step up from my previous cameras, and it is my first DSLR, so I feel like quite the grownup. And I can get bat-out-of-hell-running shots of Mr. Jefferies, like this:

I keep on threatening to pot up my little seedlings, but so far they are still where you last saw them. 

Mr. Jefferies has been watching The Tudors with me. He picked up a few things, such as:

 

For All Those Who Have Theorized That The New Gentler Front-Loading Washers Do Not Felt Things....

...I'm here to tell you, tain't true.

Exhibit A:

It may not be all that evident from this photo, but believe me, it's felted -- ESPECIALLY the alpaca tummy-piece. I wanted it to shrink a bit because it had stretched a lot, but this is way overdone -- about 40% shrinkage, I'd say, and the neck is almost as stiff as cardboard.  It's definitely too small, even for teeny-weeny little Mr. J.

This is after only one run through the machine, using hot water and with several towels in the mix. (friction is the key with felting) It's kind of a hoot, because back when I was doing all those felted bags in that old energy-guzzler SUV of washing machines, that top-loader I had -- the one that's supposed to be so powerful and the one that used tons of water and wore the clothes out sooner -- I'd have to put items through often as many as FIVE TIMES to get them to felt fully. This one is almost "there" after only one run.  

Good thing these are fun and fast to knit. I'll cut off the buttons and use them on another one.  

-----------------

Blue Fair Isle "Mom" Sweater Update:

I've finished the right front.   

Oh, Yes. The Universe Does Indeed Seek Balance

I should have known better than to crow about my wonderful weekend. I should have known better.

Monday just pretty much kicked the weekend's ass - in a not-good way. (p.s. It appears that we shut down Blog Poll with so many responses. Or it could be just a coincidence. But I wasn't even able to see the final tally, as the website seemed to be down when I got home late last night. Damn. When last I looked, the Mountain Mohair -- in spicy golden brown, not green as some people seemed to think! -- was in the clear lead. I think it's in the lead with me, too.)

Well, I finished the bag and it came out kind of cute. Not exactly what I'd imagined or envisioned when I started it, but kind of cute anyway. Not sure if I will ever use it, but it is pretty to look at. Here's what it looked like prefelting:

And here it is, in a photo with my felting jeans and my Cari mug, after three runs through the washer. Three runs which, I'm just hoping, since the universe has indeed shifted, have not ruined my washer. That sucker shed like a muthah. And it needs a bit of a shave, I think, but it's cute. Its rotund shape will probably prevent me from actually ever taking it shopping, but in the end it was sort of modeled after the French Market Bag. It started out as one of these, but I stopped it shorter than this pattern, and did the handles similarly to the FMB.

This is what it might look like after a shopping jaunt down a French street, I suppose.

Of course I should have a baguette, a piece of cheese, a big sausage, and a bottle of wine to complete the tableau, but I didn't have them handy.

I do so love how that Manos felts (the bronzey-colored stripe and tops of the handles). I wish the striped part was wider. the handles came out fantastic, because I doubled the yarn there. I did not double the yarn for the stripes, and I wish I had.  It was much thinner than the Lamb's Pride Bulky which makes up the rest of the bag.

Anyway, fun colors, fun knit, and a nice little item. I wish the colors matched something in my house, but they don't. The colors match my clothes, not my decor. But it doesn't do any good for them to match my clothes if I don't intend to carry it around, now, does it? Hm. A dilemma.

Then the day went straight downhill from there. I turned on my computer to do some work that an attorney requested "sooner rather than later." His words. I was going to whip it out yesterday before I hit the road for my evening (ick) deposition. I looked. I thought I saw SMOKE. I looked again. I DID see smoke. Coming out of the software key in one of the USB ports. The software key is required to run the court-reporting software. This is not good. I moved quickly to remove it. HOT! Nearly burned my fingers taking it out. And it stayed hot for a LONG time.

We won't even get to the more basic question of did this fry my computer overall. I turned it off, and that question is too frightening for me to ponder at the moment. I immediately got on the phone to dial the number for the software company. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. No answer. Highly odd.

Then it hits me.

They're based in Stuart, Florida. In the middle of a Class 4 hurricane at the moment.

Stay tuned for further developments on that one.

So then I went on a fairly long drive and took a boat across the lake for an evening deposition of a doctor for which one of the attorneys was almost an hour late. But I couldn't be too angry at him: He had driven over seven hours to get there, and he was still good-natured, polite, and looked freshly pressed.

But I was exhausted, anxious and cranky when I finally got home at about 10 p.m., at which time I learned that I must still have a little left in the bank on the good karma thing. I came home to not one, but TWO, BIG.FAT.BOXES from my Better Pal. I am actually a little red-faced and embarrassed at her generosity on so many levels.

The one that impresses me the most is that she took a risk and went outside the box in making a gift choice. When I answered my questionnaire, I talked about a couple of kinds of pottery and other vintage things I collect.  My Better Pal said she doesn't know anything about pottery, but she went to a shop and asked the owner's advice about a piece of pottery to buy and send me. That, I'm telling you....well, I'm having a hard time keeping it together, because that is so very touching and so very thoughtful. Huh? How 'bout THAT, people?!

A photo of the lovely bounty:

It's a vintage McCoy beanpot/cookie jar! Three skeins of Reynolds Lite-Lopi in my favorite colors, a box of Dante truffles (with a name like that, they gotta be great), an adorable mold (for ice cubes, butter, etc.) in strawberry shapes, and if that's not enough already, five little Chinese boxes with gifts in them. I'm pretending I have not already looked inside, although I really have. I'm going to "forget" what's inside and look inside again over the course of another few days, and be surprised all over again. 

Seriously, have you ever? I truly hope the Better Pal for MY Better Pal treats her as well. That is some seriously good energy she has sent out here.  Seriously good. May it come back to you in threes, my dear!

Here's a closeup of the McCoy: