Sincerely Jane Challenge #3

On Saturday, May 14th, I'm going to hold a hook-in in this facility.

This is the Hamburg Senior/Community Center. A great place for a hook-in with two wide window walls helping to create great lighting for hooking. The main room will hold up to 150 people. The hook-in will be a benefit for the Hooked Rug Museum of North America. I have to work on getting invitations out pretty soon.

I spent all of my spare time this weekend working on drawing the patterns for my Sincerely Jane rug. While I was busy, the dogs were mostly sleeping - I caught this photo of Blue sleeping with George as her pillow. George didn't seem to mind at all.

It took all morning on Saturday to get the first two rows done, then I had to go to a meeting in Ann Arbor. When I came home, I drew a couple more rows. Then today, I've so far finished seven rows. I've decided to add a ninth row, so I have row number 8 to draw and row number 9 to select and draw - then I have to make a decision about wool. I was planning to do the outlining in antique black, but saw some lovely suiting wool at the JoAnn store today - it was a charcoal color with a lot of flashes of other colors in it. That wool reminded me of some dark blue I bought at Sauder last summer. I'm going to try to guesstimate how much wool I'll need and see if I have enough of the Sauder wool - it could be more interesting than antique black.

Another Doll

I knitted another doll, and this time filled it with a lot less fiberfil. It's really not easy to determine how much filling is the right amount of filling. I'm going to pull out some of the filling in the first two dolls and re-felt them when I felt the new one. I'm hoping the re-felting will bring the hand and feet fibers closer together because right now, you can see the white fiberfil through the over-stretched stitches. To re-felt I'll have to pull out the eyes and nose and then the post-felting dolls will get new eyes and maybe have new personalities.

At my quilting group today I said I was making them for the rummage sale in the fall and I already have one sold! I think they're pretty cute and it's nice to know someone else thinks so, too.

Knitted Felted Dolls

My latest project has been doll knitting. I found the pattern for "Felted Kuku dolls" in Love of Knitting magazine. The knitting is really easy - all stockinette stitch with a couple rows of purl two together and knit front and back in the same stitch. The only unusual stitch is the "bobble" that makes the ears - and that's basically knitting and purling in the same stitch multiple times. There are two rectangles for the legs, a bigger rectangle for the body and head, and two smaller rectangles for the arms.

The rectangles were sewn together and stuffed with fiberfil, and then hair was added. I followed the directions with the black haired doll, pulled a strand of yarn through and then knotting it, but I did the yellow haired doll like rug hooking, only with really long loops. Then, following the directions, I pulled some non-wool yarn through to hold the fiberfil in place. I won't do that with my next doll, or I'll do it very differently, because all of those white strands of yarn ended up as a mass of tangled soapy yuk in the washing machine after felting.

I learned that I had overstuffed both dolls - you can see how over-stretched the hand and feet yarns are. I pulled some of the stuffing out, but the yarns would not relax (because they're felted!) With the hair sticking up, the dolls are about eleven inches tall.

I needle-felted some eyes and saw the dolls finally have some personality - so then I added some needle-felted little snub noses. I took the dolls to the senior center today to show a couple people and then sat them in a chair next to me when I played Bingo - and I won, so I think they make lucky charms.

I learned several things with these two dolls that will help while I knit some more. I'm planning to donate them for our senior center rummage sale which will probably be in October. I'm going to be really careful about where I store these dolls, Gibby can't seem to take his eyes off of them. I'm sure he thinks I'm making dog toys.