First Felt

  I've never felted anything before. You will probably be able to tell after you see the pictures. I bought some Wool of the Andes from Knit Picks and decided to try it out. The wool is 100%  Peruvian Highland Wool. It didn't say super wash so I knew it would felt when washed. The first thing I did was crochet a cloche. I went up two hook sizes, but when I was done it seems to fit almost too good. Maybe the yarn was too bulky, or maybe I need to reevaluate my pattern. There was a little room for shrinkage, but I now know that I need way more room for shrinkage. Here is the before picture.

  I felted the cloche in the bathroom sinks. I used my sink for hot water and my husband's sink for cold water. I put a little dish soap in the hot water. I scrubbed, squished and agitated the cloche in the hot water, then in the cold water, going back and forth a few times until the wool looked felted. It was a lot more work than I thought. When I was done I squeezed the water out and rolled it in a towel to remove any excess water. I tried to put the cloche on my Styrofoam head to dry, but it did not fit. I left it to dry, standing up, so it wouldn't lose it's round shape. It took a really long time to dry. The finished piece, will probably fit a young child. I'm still thinking of what to embellish it with. I think a ribbon around would look nice and classy.

Rockin' Mohawk Beanie

  Here is my Mohawk beanie. I've been wanting to make one for a while. I didn't use a pattern, I just made a basic beanie using half double crochet, added ear flaps, made a single crochet outline in red, and added the braided tassels. For the Mohawk, I cut 4 inch pieces of yarn and latch hooked them, two at a time in the stitches of the beanie making a single line all the way to the back. I thought I would have to put more on the sides to make the hawk a little thicker, but the yarn spreads out nicely. What do you think?

Isaiah's Beanie

  Here is a beanie I made for my son. It's a basic beanie with added ear flaps and some surface crochet on the side. You can't see, but the bottom of the ear flaps have a braided cord with the black and lime yarn. He looks pretty happy with it. I'm happy with it too! The surface crochet of his name on the side took a while, but I really like the way it came out. I thought about putting a "mohawk" on it, but decided it would be too much, so I just left it like this. Maybe I'll do another one with a mohawk and without the surface crochet.