New Camera

I got a new digital camera for Christmas! Yippee! Now I can finally have photos on my blog again. Bet you're thrilled, too!

I spent a lot of last minute knitting before Christmas. I swear every year that I'm not going to do that, but I decided with about 2 weeks left before Christmas that I wanted to make a pair of felted slippers for my son who is away at chemical dependency treatment at Hazelden Center for Youth and Families and a second pair for my father-in-law who is battling terminal prostate cancer. I made the first pair out of Ella Rae Classic with Fiber Trends' Felted Clog pattern.

It always amazes me how much of the contrasting color it takes to make these clogs - even though I've made a lot of this pattern. The soles of these were done in the brown as well, and they're double thick, so I used up almost two full skeins of the brown. It took a lot less of the green.

The second pair were made with Araucania Nature Wool. I had two skeins of the blue and only one of the black - and I ran out of the black. That's why the sole on the slipper on the right side has a little blue in it. These slippers are waiting for their leather soles to be sewn on - which will hide the sole color change. I hate giving presents that aren't finished, but I'll get the soles on this week and get them to my father-in-law.

As far as the two wools are concerned, I liked the way the Classic felts much better than the Nature Wool. The Nature Wool turned out very fuzzy, and I had to trim them with scissors and then a sweater shaver - what a pain in the butt! But I like the slight variegation in the color of the Nature Wool... But when I go to make myself another pair of slippers - which I have to do, since I'm running through the soles on mine after a year, I'll use Classic or Plymouth Galway instead.

I'm thrilled to be done with the Christmas presents though, because I'm starting a crocheted felted scarf from CrochetMe.com. The pattern is called North & South because it can either be done out of wool and then felted or out of cotton and left as is. It's also a fairly simple pattern which is a good thing for a beginning crocheter like me. I'm making this out of Classic as well. I did my test swatch last night and realized that I have to add two rounds to each of my circles in order to make them big enough, but I don't mind... By the way, I think the CrochetMe webzine is great - it reminds me of Knitty.com. Great patterns...