Knit, felt, knit, felt...

I am back on that crazy horse called FELTING! As if I did not have enough of it last year and I had the blisters to show. With the lack of Thrift stores selling wool and cashmere sweaters in South Africa, I consulted my lovely book, Easy Felted Accessories.

This book suggests knitting by hand or machine, felting the pieces and then cutting and sewing the fabulous projects featured. The projects range from hats to gloves, a blanket, needle book, slippers, scarves, corsages and other quick and easy projects.

Knitting goes fast, not so? I can quickly knit a large piece and make this fabulous bag by Saturday night!

Off to the Yarn shop I went Saturday morning and guess what? They had a SALE! I found the most gorgeous Portuguese 100% wool yarn, the purple yarn featured in the first pic of this post, and some lovely local felting wool yarn.

Enrhusiastic, I strarted knitting away. Knitting is NOT fast. It is NOT easy on my poor hands that are not used to this exercise either. By Saturday night, this is how far I got, as you can see in the first pic of this post. How do knitters DO it? Wish I had a knitting machine. Or better, can find some wool sweaters for cheap. Ah well, I'll get there, maybe by Xmas?

Just look at these fabulous felted rose corsages. Another quick project in this book. These will look so stunning on my knitted, felted bag!

And don't forget my knitted, felted Russian Hat! I want one!

With our sunny, warm weather in South Africa, we do not wear wool and cashmere sweaters, so the shops do not sell much of it. If you do find it at upmarket stores they can cost about $90 each. I do own a handful of cashmere sweaters, but at that price I will not be cutting them up!

I am on a mission to find some cheap wool sweaters and surfing the internet is high on the priority list. No luck so far, but I am determined. Knit, felt is clearly not the way!