felting

I wrote this post on 1/14 and then my aunt called to tell me about a friend of our family's that was in an accident....  Here it is, 2 weeks later.
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Who knew?

Over the last 2 weeks I knitted 3 large projects that were to be felted:
The Pink Lady Bag (my project in Ravelry)
A Noni Purse with felted flowers -  Spring 2006 "Evening" (my project in Ravelry)
Kitty Pi (my project in Ravelry)

Ok so first of all, the project backstories.  Over New Year's week I went to Lake Placid with 3 friends,  We went downhill skiing one day at Whiteface.  We went to the Olympic X-Country facility and the Olympic outdoor speed skating track.  New Year's Day we went to Montreal, where the only things that were open were the kosher restaurants and the Casino.  I won $123 at Blackjack! I learned to cross country ski, and I was pretty good to.

That is literally when I learned to stop.  I was going down a ginormous hill and there was a turn.  We all didn't quite learn how to turn yet, either.  We couldn't see him from the top of the hill, but my friend was standing at the bottom taking a photo - in the exact place I was heading for.
Me: "French fries! French fries! Wtf? Howard, MOVE!"
But I learned to stop :D

We all really liked cross country, so we went again, this time to the Olympic facility.  WAY harder, but also lots of fun because there were more inclines, and we were better at it :)

Anyways, back to the knitting.  My friends were really nice and dropped me at the LYS for 30 minutes on Friday - called Adirondack Yarns.  I didn't see any yarns I *had* to buy, and I wasn't loving any of the kits, but then the shopkeeper showed me to the pattern section.  It was really hard not to walk out with all of them, but I bought 2 bag patterns I've had my eye on for months - the Lucy Bag, and the Noni pattern I linked to above.  I also got 2 others, a messener bag pattern called Mercury and The Pink Lady Bag.  I had my set of Knitpicks Options needles with me of course, so I picked up 2 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted and a cute Fimo button to start the Pink Lady Bag.

It. Knit. Up. HUGE.  I was imagining a medium or small purse - this thing was like 12x16 at LEAST, and the handle was looong.  Then I made the bag part of the Noni bag - also ginormous.  The pattern says small evening bag - HA!.

A friend of mine emailed me to ask if I would cat sit for her while she went to the inauguration.  It's a really inconvient location for me, and my parents aren't so happy that her apartment is in Harlem, but whatever. She can't find anyone else.  Anyways, I decided to knit a Kitty Pi, in an attempt to elicit good behavior from the cat despite the fact that I am a dog person.  Yeah... anyways :)  It's a big project - I used 4 skeins of Lion Wool - but I finished in some ridiculously quick time like 5 days or something.

Last night I felted them in the washer.  I put it on the hot/cool rinse cycle for the longest time possible.  I have never had anything felt so well in the past.  They came out perfectly felted, very sturdy, and overall awesome.