OHMIGOD! It's almost Fall!!
I can hear crickets at night, and geese every morning, so I guess that means our short Canadian summer is drawing to a close - although I never really put the duvet away this year...had a lovely vacation in N.B., met some great people and got some fab yarn. There are only a couple of summer UFOs hanging around and I am seriously thinking about woolly things again, which leads me into:

Frenchy's Slippers (thanks Theresa!)

My mom-in-law is one of the reigning queens of sock knitters (she made 30 pairs last year in her 'spare time'), and so I thought that I should at least try and figure out that mysterious heel turn. I had my eye on Fuzzyfeet on Knitty where you knit a giant pair of socks (big stitches, great for learning) and felt them, and presto! slippers. Frenchy's (used clothing stores all over the Maritimes) provided a lovely merino sweater which was ripped apart during a road trip, and the results are featured below:

Here are the giant sox - the ruler is 14" - the one on top was made second and features a much nicer heel and the toe graft done on the correct side!

Post-felting, you can see how nicely they've seized up and hidden all the ugly bits.
Here they are on the feet of the intended:

Confessions of a Felting Heretic (with apologies to A.M.)

As you've probably figured out if you've browsed this blog at all, I got really hooked on felting knitted stuff. Also, I never really make anything without changing it (this started sometime in high school when I almost flunked HomeEc for making a pattern 'wrong'). I have chatted with some people who seem to agonize over the whole technique, so here're a few of my 'unrules':

1. This whole thing is essentially an experiment and unless you're really obsessive (if so, you don't want to read the rest of this), you're never going to have/go out and buy the exact yarn that the pattern you're looking at calls for, so your object is never going to come out exactly like that picture. Look forward to serendipity.
2. Live dangerously, don't swatch - ok, so maybe knit a few rows to decide whether to use 6mm or 9mm needles, but mostly I want to be knitting the something and not spending time and yarn to produce bunches of things that look like tiny potholders. Just keep in mind that you are going to lose a lot more height than width. (The exception to this would be if you decide to knit, e.g., N.E.'s felted coat but I don't think that really fits into the experimental category).
3. I rarely turn on the washer just to felt stuff. Mostly I put the knitted thing in with a smallish regular wash that will take warm to hot water and a regular (agitating) cycle. I have used a lot of different soaps/detergents and brand doesn't seem to matter. I set the machine for the longest cycle and then stop it just before the rinse to check on felting progress. The first time I usually crank it around and set it for another long wash cycle.
4. Rinsing; just let the rinse cycle run - my rinse in always on cold, and this really helps the felting. I have rarely ended up with wrinkles or creases that won't stretch out.
5. Repeat 3. and 4. until your felting or your laundry is done.
6. Use one of those zippered pillowcases to keep all the fuzz out of the washer.