Felting

These are the 8th and 9th pairs of Fiber Trends Knitted Clogs I've made. These are for my sister and her son the Spiderman enthusiast (I'll let you guess whose is whose.)

Last year this was the Christmas knitting, for the most part, as you can see:

I love this pattern and can whip out a pair in about four nights. This time, though, I tried felting in the dryer and it worked great! I have a front-loading washer, and felting there is a toss-in-and-pray situation, but I got this tip from a knitter on the Knitlist. You soak them in hot water and toss them with a couple of wet towels into the dryer on the hottest settings. Check often. The only thing is that they took much longer to dry since they hadn't been through a spin cycle. I'll probably do that next time; I already have two more requests.

These were completed and drying on our way to meet my folks, sister, and her family in the neon strip mine that is Branson, MO. Saturday morning it took us an hour and a half to go the five miles to Silver Dollar City and of course, I left the knitting back at the condo. I'm trudging along on the Aran cardigan, and started two toe-up socks on one Magic Loop. The first several rows (after three tries at the caston) were not fun, but I have it going now. I chose my new size 0 Addis, and with Jawoll sock yarn, my gauge is 9 stitches per inch, where the pattern's is 8.33. Now what? Do I change to size 1's, or just add on a repeat? I only have about an inch of the toe done and I'm afraid it would ride up.

While in Missouri, we stopped at a Best Buy at Sean's insistence, and he came out with a new CD. I asked him what it was.

"Bluegrass."

"It is not. What is it really?"

And he showed me: Fade to Bluegrass, a bluegrass tribute to Metallica. It cracked me up, and so did the CD. "Master of Puppets" on a banjo. Priceless.

David spent the weekend here painting the living room and it looks great! We are very mossy here. Now for the dining room and kitchen....