Shock & Distress! Part 3 : recycled felted knitwear

Well the final part of the shock and distress of yarn experiment today came in the form of a purchased from local charity shop ladies jumper in 80% lambswool/20% nylon in shades of cream and grey with hint of pinky lavender (doesn't look as pretty in the photo for some reason!).

I had it in mind to try out as per article in Sewing World magazine a recycled knitted jumper into a new trendy BAG! But first I had to find a suitable jumper! Most of them seemed to mostly acrylic and after nearly giving up my neighbour managed to find one - red while I found another in lovely lime green before deciding upon this multicoloured one! At £3.00 each I had to make my mind up and though I was tempted with the lime green, then the red, I decided to go with this one!
Here is it before I started shocking and distressing it! Vital measurements were recorded - a size 10 underarms around the garment measured 33", centre back length 20.5" and the sleeves 23" (cuffs in ribbing each 3").

It the washing machine at 60deg wash with two of hubby's tennis balls for added agitation (ha! that'll show him!) it went and I waited .. for 2.25hrs ! zzzz


And here it is! out of the washing machine and beginning to felt and shrink up nicely!
Measurements now are 28" across the garment at underarm, sleeves down to 18" in length and sadly I forgot to record the centre back length!


This is the shock and distress bit: I decided to plunge it (having cut off the cuffs which didnt appear to have shrunk OR felted) into a bowl of boiling water before plunging it into ice cold (filled with all the ice cubes that hubby obviously thought we'd need over the Christmas but which we didn't on account of nearly giving up drinking!!) TWICE!! the fabric did seem to shrink before my eyes and after another rinse and spin cycle in the machine I duly recorded my final measurements:


The garment now measures 26" across under the arms, and has a length of 13.5" while the sleeves have now shrunk to 15"! (note to self: a size 10 jumper may not be big enough for a large bag, better be prepared for a small purse!!)

Its now drying over the radiator and I'll prepare my pattern and steps to sew the bag on Thursday now as I'm working tomorrow!

Creative Textiles - week 13

Today we did mostly paperwork (zzzzz) filling in our learner's agreements and various handouts on health and safety and planning for projects, catching up on our sketch books and looking ahead to what we need to think about for our main piece of "work" that will be due around May time.

The centre was freeeezing cold this morning, I don't think they switch the heating on prior to our arrival and it didn't really warm through for the 2hrs we were there!

We looked at our grids and general felting samples undertaken with some lovely examples of this - I especially liked the black felted grid with strings of yarns across and also the green grid with all the lovely fibres in browns and black.

I was pleased that others, too, had experienced problems with getting their felt to "felt" and its generally thought that a bit of needle felting might be in order to complete the process - I'm not sure I'd want to actually wear a felted fibre gridded piece, but it looks rather nice in my sketch book!!

Our tutor, Sarah, brought along a rather nice felted bowl and described how it is made which sounded interesting and she's threatening to make us do one I mean offered to find time if we want to make one! next term!

Picked up some tips about adding boiling water to aid the felting process and also that care should be taken to buy fibres in small amounts and USE THEM - apparently stashing them and then finding they might be "dry" and not felting as well as they might could be disappointing!

We were invited to look through some old magazines and I brought home to read a copy of an embroidery magazine which had a lovely article in for "deconstructing" the embroidery stitch, when I get chance I might have a go at this - basically one would stitch rows of - for example - chain st, fly st or herringbone st, up and down quite close together and densely before sealing the reverse side of the work with fusing a piece of interfacing and then cutting, slashing and trimming closely before tufting the ends of the embroidery stitches in sections to generally "distress" areas. (I think I'd be quite distressed myself at cutting at the stitches but the accompanying photo's looked rather interesting and might be worth a go if only a small sample size!!).

I'm not sure yet what my project will be, I have a couple of ideas in my head however one of them is out due to the time constraint - TEN HOURS (only)!
(it can take me 2hrs to get started!) we have to account for both time and money spent on our finished piece and I'm hoping I can effect an overdraft facility by way of using from stash and loaning any credits to the "time" bank! (I could, given the size of my stash, offer a bribe and get twice as many hours! but then would I really want to to give away my stash?).

Gold star to me this week for being a complete prefect for filling IN my paperwork ahead of time and in lots of detail too!!
(having had a fortnight at home I had lots of time to catch up and it was one of my goals for the time home to get my coursework up to date but never the less, was pleased to have done it all ahead of time as now I can try out a few more "things"!!).

(Slightly worried about the Kiri project. This hasn't got any further beyond going UPSTAIRS to sewing room to be bagged and then coming back DOWNSTAIRS to be worked on. MUST check if this needs to be completed also, by May, if sew I might need to switch to flower arranging double quick!!).

My felted grids

Here you can see I've laid a grid of wool tops and set inside the grid a variety of fibres including a piece of silk and some ofYoshimi's lovely yarn which I crocheted into a square (actually I think its a little too thick and I've not quite completely felted it however as it will sit in my sketch book looking pretty rather than useful I don't suppose it'll matter (much).

The cats enjoyed this! I caught Bertie trying to swipe it off the table and Lilly showed some interest in the bubbles that flew out as I got Matt to energetically roller it for .. ohhhh ... AGESSS and agesss!! (hubby ruined the atmosphere of creativity by asking what it WAS EXACTLY and I was unable to answer as I'd sort of forgotten!! he then asked for a slice of what ever it was after it had been rolled and hoped it would be well baked ..)



And here it IS, baked! no. I'm still not sure. but never mind it does look rather pretty!!

Kantha sample (finished)

Here it is! the Kantha sample finished - I've washed it to remove the blue pen line as well as to see how the quilted effect worked after a good dunk in basin of hot water and it looks really nice! for a sample, that is! I tried to do a variety of stitch patterns, some more successfully than others but overall I enjoyed this part of the course and am glad I revisited this to update my sketchbook.
I'm now completely up to date, having done the felt grid too and can relax over the half term knowing that I've not got to rush to catch up!

The New Rowan magazine no. 43

HURRAH! the latest Rowan magazine no.43 arrived through my letter box this morning!

I've only glanced at it due to being out today, however first glance is that I LOVE this mag!! I have seen two or three quite viable options for my recent purchase of the dozen Rowan Bamboo Tape which means I can be up to date as well as frugal!!

I've not been on the Rowan members' forum yet to see how well its gone down, but I like what I've seen SEW far!!

My superI-pod!

I love my i-pod!
I've only listened to music so far but plan to listen to knitting pod-casts too!
So far I've had to recharge it twice! (when I say "I've" recharged it, read my SON has recharged it for me!!)
Thanks Pete! I absolutely LOVE my i-pod!!

Another bit of Kantha stitch

Fancied another go at Kantha styled stitching and decided to do a small sampler which you can see from above picture I have drawn a grid on top layer of 3, lightweight muslin layers tacked together before stitching in a variety of patterns.

I enjoyed this as it was strangely relaxing to sew across. turn. sew back. turn. return the sewing. and see the pattern form!
After I finish the final bit of stitching I shall wash out the blue marker pen and see how it looks!

I like the quilted effect of using three layers, its more substantial! and I LOVE the nice hand-dyed embroidery cotton too! lovely to stitch with!! I've nearly used the whole skein but I don't mind, thats what I bought it for, afterall, to USE!