Further adventures in Felting:
Berroco's felted footwarmer takes the chill off . . .

As kids, my sisters and I would ice skate for hours in our neighborhood park until our toes were so frozen that we just couldn't stand it. We would go into the lodge, buy a cup of hot cocoa with a marshmallow melting on top, take our skates off, and warm our toes in front of the huge stone fireplace. Those icicles we called toes would slowly warm up and I can remember the tingling as they gradually returned to body temperature. What a relief when they finally thawed.

I haven't been ice skating in years, but sometimes in the winter, my feet still do get very cold. So, while shopping recently, I flipped when I spotted a new twist on foot warmers - a pillow with two socks inside, so that one could immerse ones chilly feet into the soft and deep downy warmth of a pillow. I started thinking about the foot warmer of my dreams. My version would be felted. Choosing a palette of favorite colors in our Ultra™Alpaca the process of designing this felted project began.

If you have had felting experience you will understand that it took a couple of tries before we got it right. In fact, the first attempt used two strands of yarn held together, much like our recipe for Flora. When it emerged from the washing machine the pillow was much too heavy and used far too much yarn. So, we started over, this time single stranded. It worked perfectly. Footsie is made of adjoining mitered squares. This is a quick and easy way to make patchwork squares without sewing. I discovered mitered squares when knitting Kimchi in Foliage™. To make this foot warmer I left two squares open as holes for the cuffs. A sock-like inner lining was loosely knit then sewn to the foot openings. I stuffed it with polyester fiber fill and voila, a superduper warm and toasty tootsie warmer.

I couldn't let the results of that first attempt go unused. I decided to cut some of the felted squares into individual pieces that I put aside to make tree ornaments for a future knitbits. That still left one side of the pillow intact so I created a Sampler pillow. I found coordinating colors of Ultra™Alpaca and Keltic™ and that wonderful felting tool from Clover was calling to be used. I decided to decorate each square with simple needle felted motifs. In an hour I had covered the pillow with primitive decoration. I found a coordinating upholstery velvet fabric and a pom pom trim at my local fabric store. Click here to see other felting projects (including needlefelting).

If you are interested in more home décor knitting projects click here. Home Décor-Free Patterns | Home Décor-Preview Patterns

Gina from cyberspace wrote,   I want to knit the Brea Bag. I would like to use some woolen yarn that I have in my stash. It seems to get the gauge. Is there any reason why I shouldn't use this yarn.

Gina,
Thanks for asking. I have been meaning to address this question for a long time and this is how I feel about substituting yarns. Norah Gaughan and I spend a great deal of time testing and determining the perfect yarn for each project. Whether it is for a printed pattern or our free web patterns, we have a sample knit and proof it for yarn amounts and stitch quality, drape and overall look of each design. Our experience over many years of designing for hand knitting has given us the skills to choose the correct yarn for the project. You can trust that our choice will ensure that your project will be everything that you expect it to be.

Margery Winter
Creative Director