Scrubbing, Snowman and Socks

I've spent the whole morning cleaning B's room. It truly was in a state of chaos and I don't think she really knew where to begin anymore. She still sleeps on the top bunk in M's room, so her bed and floor were no longer identifiable. I tidied everything away, picked up three laundry basket-fuls of clothes from the floor (don't really know if it was clean or not), made her bed, rearranged her pillows and stuffies, put about 40 books onto the shelf, found about 50 hair elastics and 100 bobby pins, tossed rough copies of about a dozen homework assignments, tossed more Halloween candy wrappers than I could count, cleaned up three candies stuck to the floor in various spots, swept and mopped her floor! It looks great! Now I'm doing the loads of laundry. I noticed that her dresser and hangers were almost completely empty. I think now that she doesn't have to make a new path to the dresser and closet (since not only can you now see the floor, but it is also clean) to put away or take out clothes, there may be a better chance of her actually using them to store her clothes.
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Completely unrelated: I finished my snowman from this kit. I am so pleased with how he turned out!
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I had some ecru roving left over after I covered the "snow balls" so I spun up a 3 ply fingering weight yarn. I really liked the way this Romney roving spun up. I ended up with 10 yards that I figured should be enough for a little scarf. I cast on 4 sts and knit in seed stitch until I ran out of yarn. I dyed the scarf green and I think it makes him look even cuter!
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And the last "S": I finished my Socktober Mystery Sock KAL.
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Through the Loops designed these beautiful socks for the KAL. I'm just in time to get in on the prizes too, if I post my FO photos before midnight tonight on the Ravelry thread. These poor socks really stalled after the Rowan Felted Tweed Aran arrived at my home. Just in case you're wondering, only 9 more sleeps until I can show you that project!
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More Temptations

I'm getting closer to finishing the secret project - I'm onto the last 3 balls of Rowan Felted Tweed Aran. And although it's very hard for me to stick to one project at a time, I'm quite proud of how I've been doing. This may make it more difficult to finish.

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When I first made the decision that I would try felting, I decided that I should order the supplies on Etsy, since the lag from ordering to the supplies arriving on my doorstep would force me to knit on the secret project. But we know how that turned out. The kit I ordered arrived early this week. But I only opened it yesterday. Now that's self discipline!

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Overall I'm quite pleased with this Snowman Felting Kit from Bear Creek Design. It is very thoroughly outfitted - with attention to detail, like ensuring that the wire for the arms have pointy ends to make them easier to push through the felted snowballs. The instruction booklet is well written and well laid out. I only wish that the natural white wool (which I do love for it's naturalness) was more of a snow white color than ecru. Regardless of this one small thing, I can't wait to put this little snowman together and enjoy him. He will look great with my snowman collection that I put out every Christmas - and some of them are ecru too.

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Edited to add: The first snowman pictured is from Bear Creek Design's Etsy shop listing - hope I didn't mislead anyone into thinking I'd made him myself!

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More Felting

Just because felting is so much fun!!! I made a felted bead for B to wear. She loves unique necklaces and is always raiding my Phat Box for buttons and stitch markers to convert. I made this one for her. She loves it!

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I felted this bead from some miscellaneous brown fleece that I have kicking around. Once I was please with the shape, I covered it with the pale green and felted it quite firmly. Adding the swirl was fun and I knew B would love it. To make a hole for the chain, I stabbed successively larger dpns through the bead, beginning with a 2mm and ending with a 6mm. It seems to work quite well!

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There would be more felting, but I'm under a deadline for secret knitting. It takes precedence unless I'm getting so bored with it that I'm in danger of stabbing myself with my dpns to end the monotony of project monogamy. There is also Christmas knitting waiting in the wings that has to be done before I abandon all caution and needle felt to the exclusion of all else.

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It's Not My Fault

I've been intrigued by needle felting for some time. Living in a small town means, however, that access to supplies for any craft is limited. This is a positive thing, if you, like me, have ADHD when it comes to crafts and always want to try something new. I find I make less impulse purchases when I have to order stuff online - something about having to pay shipping & handling always give me pause for objective evaluation of my planned purchase.

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But the arrival of my October Phat Box, started me down a slippery slope. I blame WC Mercantile's Mini Mystery Bag. She even suggested using the little bits for felting. Hmm, thought I, wonder if there are any felting needles in town. So I also blame my LYS - they had needles.

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It started with some little hearts felted onto an ecru wool felt background. Then I watched a few Youtube videos on making 3D objects.

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The mushroom sprang from my table top while the kids were out trick-or-treating. It was such a rainy and snowy and cold night that I didn't get interupted very often by cute ghosties and goblins looking for candy at my door.

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I guess, I also blame Anzula for the perfect mousy grey baby alpaca sample from the October Box. My mushroom needed a little critter to protect and the mouse was next.

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I have got to stop! I have knitting that I need to start! Secret knitting, Christmas knitting, pattern tweeking knitting.

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Keep your eyes open for more felting projects next post :P

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