Buddha and all things felted

A few weeks have past since my last post. I went out of town to visit my cousins and family in Arizona. I delivered all of the fair isle hats and am now finished with the big project I have been working on for the past few weeks. I love felting and I have recently learned to love fair isle, so I decided to combine these 2 into one monster project. First, I charted a buddha image. Then I ordered yarn for the job. I chose Knit Picks Wool of the Andes. This stuff felts perfectly. I have never had a problem, and it comes in all sorts of colors. Next was to start knitting the bag. Oh yeah, I decided to put the Buddha image on the face of a purse. Reading the chart was really hard since there are no repeats! Just follow it row by row. 122 rows in all! As the bag grew, so did the pile of knitting on my lap wherever I went! This project reminded me why I like to knit small things. My favorite project is one that fits in my purse.
Here is Charlie with the bag before felting...



And here it is after felting. It measures about 13" x 15" and is the perfect size for my gym clothes or a knitting project.

This afternoon I was thinking of a way to combine knitting with beads and felting. I decided to knit a swatch of the leftover wool with some chunky beads I got from Ellene. My idea is to design a bag with the beads embedded in the felt, to give it a bumpy feel.

The swatch before felting...


After felting.

Not the exact result I was hoping for, but it is interesting. The beads are on top of the fabric (except the one that was pushed through to the purl side and felted that way). I don't think this would look good on a purse. They look sewn on after the fact. Definitely not what I was going for. Oh well, back to the drawing board. If anyone has any suggestions, please pass them along.

Ahh, Halloween. This year I dressed up as part of a group costume. 3 students and I were the dance crew Jabbawockeez. That is me on the far left with the handkerchief around my calf. All of the kids at school knew who we were...none of the adults did.


Here is a picture of the Obama lantern I carved this year. I didn't get any good pics of it lit up.


My class has knit so much lately. I have 2 huge bags to drop off at Stitches from the Heart this week. I will try to photograph it at work tomorrow so I can post their donations. Up next for them is to begin working on holiday ornaments. There is a "holiday tree" in my classroom (goes up right after Thanksgiving) that they can decorate. I encourage them to make ornaments to put on top of gifts they will give this year. People love that!

Happy crafting.