A tale of two wools

Yes, folks, I'm still alive. Things have been pretty crazy around here -- October is a month of traveling for me, which I originally thought would be a good thing since I figured that I'd spend my evenings bored to pieces in a hotel in one town or another and have plenty of time to update the blog, check e-mail, and whatnot. I just wrapped up my first trip out of three and found myself pretty listless in the evenings. I even started doing some of my exercise routine to try to pump myself up to no avail. (Hey! Since I went through the actual effort of packing my workout bands, I might as well use 'em, right?)

So, with all of my traveling that's planned, I also thought that I'd have all kinds of time to knit. And with Christmas right around the corner and with plenty of down-time in the airport or on the train ahead of me, I wanted to make sure I had a good plan of attack by having plenty of projects on hand. For Christmas, I've decided to knit several pairs of the FiberTrends felted clogs. Okay, so when I said several, I mean about 15 or so pairs.


If you're a sane person, you're probably shaking your head at me right now; but no worries -- before fully committing to this chore, I talked to a couple of friends who have used this pattern in the past for gifts ("piece 'o cake, but make sure you're paying close attention when working the sole") and did a trial run by knitting a pair for Chuck and a pair for Sylvain. I started with the presumption that both needed approximately the same sized pair, so went with the directions for a Men's size 11. Chuck's was knit using Galway (blue and grey) and Sylvain's was out of Lamb's Pride (red and brown). Each pair took me about three days to knit -- which is fantastic and fit right in with my travel plans. If one or two pairs could be completed each trip, then getting all 15 or so done by Christmas will be a snap!

Unfortunately for me, I made several rookie mistakes when I was ready to felt. First, I did not measure the unfelted sizes of either so that I could get an idea of how much each yarn shrank compared to the time they spent in the washer. I also failed to photograph the two unfelted pairs together for visual comparison, so you'll have to take my word on it when I tell you that they were really both the same size before tossing both pairs into the washer.


Mistake #2 was that I placed each pair into a separate lingerie bag, then tossed them into the same wash -- so both pairs had the same heat and same amount of agitation. OK, experienced felters -- do you see where I'm going with this? I checked the washer once and only looked at Sylvain's pair because I'm a lazy ass and didn't feel like fishing out Chuck's pair from the depths of the washer to see how it was doing. Sylvain's pair needed to go a little longer, and that was good enough for me.

Needless to say, Sylvain's pair fits Chuck great and Chuck's pair fits me perfectly. Nuts! I didn't want to knit a pair for me yet, so will likely give these to my brother's mother-in-law Ruth, since I've been assured that she's the same shoe size as me.


Also, a few of you may have seen me at Cheanne's knit-in stressing over whether to resew the sole on one of Chuck's slippers since I did each a different way and they looked drastically different to my eye. Yep, the anal-retentivenss in me took over, so I tore out the outer sole and sewed it to match the first slipper.

After this felting debacle, the wind was taken somewhat out of my sails. For this week's trip to a conference in Traverse City, I decided to focus on the Bergere de France Trapeze Line Jacket that I also had on the needles. I was able to complete the right front and left sleeve, so now only have the right sleeve, collar, and seaming the pieces together left to do. Once this sweater is done, I'll be ready to begin another pair of clogs for each of my nieces using some Cascade 220 that's waiting in the wings. The teal colored pair will be for Payton and the purple pair will be for Calista.

My next trip is this week, where I'll be spending a couple of days in Minneapolis. Yarn for Payton's clogs are wound and ready to go, so keep your fingers crossed for me and hopefully my next entry will feature a finished sweater and a pair of unfelted teal clogs....