Spinalcat's Crafty Adventures

After I made the Noro clogs for myself, I felt our roommate John (UT MBA) was being left out! I didn't quite finish them in time for his birthday, but it was close. I had a tricky time figuring out how to needle felt the longhorns. I didn't quite trust myself to freehand with unspun fiber or yarn, or even with the kind of template you hold right over the work and sort of fold the loose edges in. I wanted to cut the shapes out from a sheet of felt, but most felt you find in shops is 100% synthetic. Beverly's carried some thick felted wool sheets from Nepal, but not in white. I didn't have much time, so I hand felted my own sheet of Merino felt and cut the appliques from that. John agrees that felted clogs are the best thing ever. I've been talking about learning to weave for a long time (yay, stashbusting!), and the right time finally came along when Yarnhunter wanted to sell her Knitter's Loom. Here's my first scarf ! I need more practice with my sel...

It only took me a few days to jump on the Triana bandwagon when we started carrying it at Yarndogs this fall. It's one of the more interesting ruffle yarns I've seen, with an almost seaweed-like lacy texture. It also has a great feel and sheen. You use the same sort stabby technique as most other ruffle yarns. For my scarf , I striped 2 rows of solid black with 2 rows of the multicolor red. I used slightly more than half of each ball of yarn, and it took me about 4 hours. It is maybe a little silly and not so practical, but wearing it makes me laugh. It went great with my devil horns on Halloween. I was trying to decide which yarn to use for my own pair of felted clogs when we started carrying a new chunky striping Noro yarn called Hitsuji . I am a big Noro fan and I liked working with the yarn, but I think I would have liked shorter stripes for this project. Not all the colors showed up in each clog. I needle felted bits and pieces of the other colors onto the clogs afte...