Novice felting

While Nic was on the road, I decided to knit and felt him a pair of bootees, or houseshoes, or how do you call them. See, my sister had knit and felt these bootees for me, and they are of course especially warm and comfortable on our cold floors. So Nic had asked for a pair.

While in Finland, me and my sister went hunting for the same yarn she had knit mine with, but unfortunately that wasn't available in the shops we had access to. So I decided to risk it, bought a few other sorts of felting wool and started experimenting after returning to Ireland.

After some unsuccessful / not-so-successful experiments I decided just to take the same pattern my sister had used, and work it with one of the yarns. Unfortunately, the pattern said use 5,5 mm needles. The yarn said use 8-10 mm needles!

I've never been the one for gauge or fussy knitting, so I took my 8mm needles and started on, I figured as Nics feet are really big, the men's size would fit even if knit on too big needles for the pattern.

I knit on happily, and come to the place where I'm supposed to be switching from straight to dpns. New problem occurs - as my biggest dpns are 6 mm! What to do? Knit on.

The huge  bootees-to-be were finished in just a few hours while watching films and knitting on those big needles. I seamed up, and headed for the washing machine. As this wool had become unusable when felted in 40 degrees for cotton, and didn't felt in 30 degrees quick wash, for once I was cautious and said I'd try it by hand. I took out the gloves, and the soap, and water, and started scrubbing. I scrubbed and scrubbed, and was actually seeing some felting, when my strength ran out. Into the washing machine the half felted houseshoes went, to have a round in the sensitive 40 degrees program.

After an hour the bootees were done. I stretched them and let them to dry. Next day I notice - they're not half bad!