MAFA Felting projects & WIPs

I did take pictures of the felting projects that I did at MAFA, finally, and will now show them to show that I actually came away with more than tiny little sample skeins from the Patsy Z classes.

I decided to take a 3 hour felting class on Friday afternoon, because knew I would be doing lots of spinning in the rest of my classes. I chose one that promised exposure to a number of ways to felt, with some small finished projects. The teacher was Ruth Walker, who does wonderful felted hats and other accessories as well as teaching. I have 3 finished items from the class-

The one on the left is a pincushion (needles are stuck in it) and the smaller one is a ball, with a bell in the center, so it jingles when rolled or shaken. These were made by putting the fiber together with the embellisments, stuffing in a stocking toe, and putting them through progressively rougher washing machine agitations.

This is a small bag that was wet-felted on a form, then finished with hand felting on a textured surface (otherwise known as a dish drainer). It's a good size to hang from a wheel holding a bottle of spinning oil.

Martha asked about WIPs (I prefer to call them this rather than UFOs, I just can't think that UFOs sound like they have much of a chance of ever getting finished). I don't really ever count these up, but I will give it a try-

• 3 , no 4 pairs of socks, two pair about half finished, one needs to have a sewn bind-off done on the second sock, and one needs to have the toes finished on both
• 1 Fair Isle Bag - about 1 1/2 inches knitting left, then dealing with yarn ends (hundreds of ends, because there are 7 different colors in the bag)
• 2 cardigan-style sweaters, one 1/2 done, the other done except that one arm needs to be lengthened an inch, then both need to be assembled
• 1 Aran pullover, sleeves and body up to armholes, sleeves need to be attached and sweater knitted up to neck and finished
• 1 gansey, body done, sleeves need to be picked up and knitted down
• 1 sweater for DH, sleeves and back finished
• 1 baby sweater (no intended recipient, just knitting ahead), one half done
• 1 diagonal scarf from Morehouse lace-weight, very boring, I will probably frog this one and re-start in a more interesting pattern

Really, this isn't as bad as I thought! A total of 12 things, and I am actively working on the bag, if I finish this and then frog the Morehouse Merino it will be down to 10. I should be able to get it down to 5 or six by the end of the month, and then it will feel as if everything's back under control.