A Sheep, Swap and Felted misfortunes.

It's the year of the sheep/goat!  That means it should be a good year for knitters right??  One of the best things ever happened to me during the year of the goat 2 cycles ago... the Angie was born!!  If she was born when she was due, she would have been a monkey, but since she was a month early, she's a goat.  Really it fits her hard head better!  (She's a Capricorn - so double hard head whammy)

I was in a card swap in the Tiny Owl Knits group on Ravelry - here's the cute card I got, yarn that will become a hexi and some tea to try!



I'm also in a Chinese New Year's swap in the same group.. alas I haven't gotten my package yet, I'll post when I do.  I made a crocheted sheep to send my swappee - 



He's from the now defunct knit.1 magazine from 2008!!  There were patterns for all the zodiac animals in that issue - still haven't made my horse!!

We were also supposed to send handmade fortune cookies.  I used Patton wool - I've used that successfully before - but then again I usually felt bags or slippers.  I also usually felt with jeans - but since the yarn was light colored I thought that blueish fortune cookies might seem weird so I put them in mesh bags to protect them from lint and threw them in with towels.  I also used to felt with a top loader and these were done with a front loader machine.  Either way I had issues!





I knit a round and I crocheted a round, both were very loose going in (loose fabric felts better)  they weren't even close to round coming out and pieces of the edges fused in weird pleated ways.



These were after I attempted to get them round again while they were wet before they dried.  I then tried steam blocking them round.. it helped a little, in a amputating your foot is better than amputating your lower leg kind of way..



I finally realized that one of the beauties of felting is that you can cut the item without it unraveling. SO I used a DVD to trace out a circle, and cut them.



When I was finally ready to assemble them, I realized the white ribbon I was going to use for the fortunes was wired edged, apparently all my solid color ribbon except black was wired edged.  SO I used red construction paper for the fortunes - red is the lucky New Year's color anyway!



My swappee seems to really like the package I sent her - so all turned out good!