We began at the cafe and moved along to the yarn shop, ogling the yarns as we had the pastries. Fingering one or two as we couldn't the tarts, pies, and brioche.
Little Bear saw some knitted critters and asked if we could make one. I said, "yes." So, we found the table of patterns and decided upon a rabbit and a llama (both by Fiber Trends) and a made-up-creature. The first two were for wool felted animals. The third pattern was for non-wool yarns. On the way out of the store, we saw saw a felted sheep in the window. It was really cute. Back into the store we went to get the sheep.
(The report on the fabric store will come later.)
The bunny was the first of the menagerie. The Fiber Trends pattern was clear and easy to understand and really fun to knit. It required more concentration than most of my previous endeavors, but wasn't so fussy as to be difficult. Thanks to the internet and YouTube I was able to learn any knit stitch I wasn't familiar with or had forgotten.
I used an inexpensive wool fisherman's yarn in natural and chose not to use a contrasting yarn for inner ears and bottoms of feet.
After knitting and stitching the parts together, I felted it in the washing machine with hot water and Tocca soap. I used a lingerie bag to prevent too much wool collecting in the washer. The instructions said it was necessary to stop the process before the spin cycle to avoid ugly creases and to restart the agitation if necessary to felt the piece more.
The washing process went faster than I thought and the spin cycle started. But I stopped it quickly, and no damage done. Lesson learned. Set the cycle on the longest time allowed, set a timer for a few minutes (I set one for 4 minutes, but time may vary depending on the type of wool yarn used), and stop the machine when the timer goes off. If it's not felted enough, put it back in, turn the washer cycle back to the longest time setting to avoid the spin cycle, and reset your timer. Keep checking till the piece is felted the amount you want.
Rinse in cool water till all soap is gone. The Tocca seems to rinse out quickly. There are also wool soaps recommended in the instructions that also rinse well and quickly.
I took out the cotton stitches laced into the stuffing opening and stuffed it with small rags and shaped the rabbit. Taking out the cotton stitches was a little tricky, and I did have to tug at the opening some to separate the wool.
It took several days to dry completely.
After removing the rags, I stuffed the rabbit with fiber fill and stitched the opening with the same wool used to knit the bunny; then used a blunt needle to rough up the stitches to make it hardly noticeable.
A little embroidery floss for eyes, nose, and mouth and Wha-la! Instant felted buddy.
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