Not so fascinating

Today has been a day of knitting. I was absolutely intent on finishing Winterthorn 2 today and I have (thank you 4OD!). It's currently in the airing cupboard, stuffed with a towel. After reading some of the Ravelry comments on the lamented Zauberball I was getting paranoid about the dye running during blocking. There's nothing like delicious vanilla-cream coloured wool to bring out paranoid visions of bleeding dye. The water went a little brown but nothing more than I'd expect and I can already tell how much the drape is going to be improved by blocking. Unless I can distract myself tomorrow I think I'll be checking it hourly to see if it's dry and ready to wear! Then I just need to find a hat model for some photos.

Once the hat was finished I decided to take a shot at my fascinator on the basis that I needed to do some washing and I might as well do felting at the same time. I diligently wrote down all my rows and convinced myself that the rather odd shape might just about work if I stretched it in certain ways.



Could this look less like a fascinator?
Probably not

 Oh how wrong I was. I might get a photo of it tomorrow because the resulting felted.... thing is quite remarkable in its un-fascinator-ness. I soaked it. Twisted it. Turned it. Squished it. Folded it. But there's no way that charcoal-grey squiggle anemone is ever going to be a fascinator.

Well, I've learned some valuable lessons from it and I've got enough wool for another couple of attempts and I guess that's all that matters. On the plus side, the Fez looks amazing felted. If I can get something I'm even halfway happy with then it's going to look great. But judging by the first draft, halfway happy is still a long way off!

While the monstrosity was felting, I started sewing up Lilly the Frog for the Marine Cove community garden knitting. I've been knitting the various bits on the bus this week and I've got enough limbs, eyes and other boy parts to make up at least two. The pattern is not exactly professional standard but it gets the job done, which is all that matters and it's been exactly the quick and simple project that I've needed for dopey January mornings.

I've put off the sewing up and stuffing phase because it's not quite so bus-suitable and now I have to ask: how the hell do people knit toys for fun?! These things take longer to sew together than they did to knit in the first place! If I wanted to be doing this much sewing I'd be doing my quilting! I guess I hadn't noticed just how much stuff I do in the round now. Sewing up mini stockings for the Christmas sale seemed frustratingly time consuming and they only have two pieces. The frogs have eleven!

I know it's for a good cause and - hey, I volunteered, I've no right to complain - but I'm starting to fantasise about the seamless, mindless twirly skirt I should probably be cracking on with. Any project with a 99:1 knitting:sewing ratio is a win in my books.