MORE FUN WITH WOOL
or "Four Bags Full"

Now when I came home yesterday afternoon, and walked up the path, I was a little puzzled by the enormous bags on the verandah. When I came closer, I realised there were four bags of wool - two large hessian sacks and two large stripey bags, packed tight with raw wool in all sorts of shades from white to cream to grey to black, all mixed in together. The picture shows just one of the bags!

I soon guessed that Annette had been here. She had mentioned a couple of times that she was downsizing, and had a bit of wool to give me to do some felting. In fact she had even emailed me a recipe for FELTED SOAP!! I was expecting perhaps a small shopping bag or two - certainly not this much. Bernie was horrified, but son John said that if we could not find another use for the wool, it would make good mulch for the garden, and that seemed to satisfy Bernie, who has had nearly 40 years to get used to my excesses!

Well, you know me - I was up quite late running the stuff through my fingers, and teasing some of it out. I half-filled two shopping bags, but barely made a dent in the top of the first sack.

First thing this morning I consulted my friend Google, and decided to make some felted eggs. I had four stone eggs in my collection that would make a good base.

An hour or so later, this was what I had produced.

I really like the effect of the blue webbing, but I am not sure how well it is clinging to the other felt. I may need to needlefelt it into place. When these eggs are dry, I will cut a slit at the base and remove the stone eggs, and stuff it with more wool, and then close the opening, probably with some discreet stitching and some more needlefelting. They will make great ornaments or useful pincushions.

Meanwhile, I have really got stuck into the knitting business, and produced four lengths of stripey knitting using my tapestry wool collection.

These have been thrown into the washing machine, along with the earlier green piece that did not felt well the first time. Some of my friends in the Craft group suggested my knitting may have been too tight, and that I should use larger needles, and the later pieces certainly felted up much more quickly when I did this.

What plans do I have for these funny little pieces of felt? Well, I have visions of some funny little elves and Santas, which will make a great giveaway next Christmas. In the meantime, I will leave them to "mellow."

By the way, I have barely made any impression on my Tapestry wool stash, but I have used a lot of the nicer colours. And I think I have got knitting out of my system for a little while.

I think that felting will be "all the go" here for a while. I am not sure about the felted soap - but you never know!!!