Snow and Felt

It was a strange weather weekend here. All week long the forecasters were predicting a big winter storm starting Friday and lasting through Sunday with 12" or more of snow. Friday came and went with nary a flake (or even a rain drop really). But the wind really picked up. I had planned on staying at home all day Saturday because of the weather, but since it wasn't so bag in the morning, I ventured out to 3 Kittens - on icy, slick roads. I guess it had rained some on Friday night. My first clue should have been the ice encrusted windshield! Anyway, I made it to the store without any problems and put in a few hours of work, during which time the snow started in earnest. Here's a photo I took on Sunday morning - you'll notice it was still snowing!!


I was able to spend quite a lot of time knitting this weekend. I finished knitting and felting the Fiber Trends squirrel and a funky chicken from Sandesgarn's Toving Tema 11.

I'm not completely happy with either of them - although I'm sure they'll both look better with eyes and other embellishments. The squirrel's tail actually grew in the felting. It's knit with one strand of Lite Lopi and one of Naturally's Temptation. I'm hoping that once I stuff the squirrel with regular batting (he's currently stuffed with plastic bags while he's drying), and I sew up the tail & attach it a bit more up his back that it will look better. The chicken is just goofy - in a cute kind of way - but the pattern called for stuffing it with batting before felting (along with a small baggie of dried beans to weigh down the bottom). I didn't know how much batting to put in, and now that it's felted, I can't move the batting around, so there are some spots that don't have enough batting. Plus the beans migrated up a bit. I may do another one in a different color and leave an opening in the bottom so I can stuff it afterward.

Now it's on to a crocheted scarf in the Macalester College colors. I had to chain 449 stitches last night! Egads! How do you keep track of so many chains. Maybe locking stitch markers every 50 stitches...