Learning from Mistakes

It's never fun to have to throw out a messed-up felting project (at least with knitting, you can unravel the yarn!), but I suppose I can say that it's how one improves. Last week one day I had a block of time to make the first of Mirian's slippers. I chose her favorite colors and decided to make them slightly thicker and to use only wool, no alpaca. The alpaca in mine feels incredibly soft, however it is not holding in the rest of the felt very well. Although I love alpaca, it's not well-suited for felting that will take a lot of hard wear.

I traced a pattern for the resist and made it larger to account for shrinkage.... but not enough shrinkage! I guess that using more merino (which shrinks a lot) and not using alpaca (which barely shrinks) made it shrink significantly more. After trying to make this fit Mirian's foot (it felt like I was trying to get Cinderella's stepsister's foot into the glass slipper!), I gave up and started over.

The new slippers made from a larger resist turned out great! I had hoped to photograph them with the leather already sewn on, but I've not been able to whittle out even that little bit of time this week.

I did do a bit of dyeing, carding and spinning this past week, just wish I could have done more!

A friend told me that alpaca couldn't be spun into coils, one had to use merino, so of course I had to try- I love the result.

I'm off to the Southern Select Alpaca Show in Tennessee this weekend, then I'm chaperoning my son's choir trip to Orlando for 5 days! I'm beginning to forsee a time when our daughter will be back in school next year and I'll have larger blocks of time for fiber work again, trying hard not to wish the time away!