After scarves, my next major milestone was felting. I dove in straight away and signed up for a class to make a felted pillbox hat. There were 4 of us in class - 2 had front-loaders, and 2 only had access to coin-operated machines. So, Elaine offered for us to use her machine. What fun! For my first hat, I used Manos del Uruguay. What a pleasure to knit with - unfortunately, after washing and felting, most of the color was lost. My lovely red and purple hat (no, I'm not 50 yet), ended up looking like something of the Dr. Seuss-style.
Everyone else loved it! well, except me.
I was more impressed with the other hats that were made in the class. One used Noro Kureyon which felted to the softest hat ever, and an incredible blending of color from one hand-painted line to the next. The lady in the middle made her hat to replace one she'd lost. It's 60 rows using Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride. That was my next project!
After the class, I obsessively knit a few hats, ok, 5 - 2 using Lamb's Pride - a Black one, and a Red one; one using Noro Kureyon (shown here as the striped pink one); a periwinkle hat from Lamb's Pride Bulky. Here they are stacked up on my table - pre-felted. Since I needed a top-loading machine that was vigorously felt and shrink my wool hats, I co-opted a coworker who has just such a machine, and offered to knit her a hat in exchange. The Periwinkle hat with the darker purple stripe is hers. I wanted to make one to match her periwinkle coat. It turned out to be just perfect.
Did you count ? I only described 4.The fifth was an alpaca hat that I'd started during the same time as class. It's one of Bev Galeskas' patterns of a hat with a felted brim. The reason I separated it is because I wanted to show you how big the hat was BEFORE I felted it. yep. HUGE. The after-shot fits my head much better.
and it fits- what a bargain!
Here's the red one - I gave it to my friend Lynn as a gift:
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