Felted Succulent

Pattern: Mini succulent kit by Felted Sky (from a YarnYay box)

New skills: Needle felting

Lessons: I’m not sure if felting is my thing. My FO looked a little greebly, and while that’s an expected outcome on my first try, I don’t think I enjoyed the process enough to warrant investing the time to improve my skills.

Using a straight up/down stabbing motion will reduce stress on the needle and prevent it from breaking.

Roving and felting wool (i.e. batting) are different! After carding, batting is layered in sheets, which results in the fibers being a little less aligned. Roving is pulled off the carding machine in ropes, so that fibers remain aligned.

Stabbing the same section repeatedly will compact the fiber more, and create a more concave shape. Similarly, it’s possible to pinch and tilt the piece to felt the fibers at an angle to fix them into a concave shape.

Repeatedly turning the piece is important while felting on a foam block, as the wool fibers will start to get poked into the block (I had to peel it off before the first turn each time).

What I’d do differently: I had a hard time assembling the leaves into a plant, maybe because I’d already felted the ends too much before assembly.

Oval Doormat

I made a rectangular mat for the door to our back patio, and noticed that the edges were starting to curl, so I decided to frog it and make an oblong mat instead.

Pattern: Self-drafted. Chained 20 stitches, then on every round I sc 18 sts along each straight edge, and increased 3 sts on each end, doing an extra increase every 8th round. Made using recycled Wool and the Gang Jersey Be Good in Grey.

New skills: n/a

Lessons: I achieved a flat mat using these techniques:

1. Crocheted into the back loop so that the stitches were looser. I actually started doing this midway through the rug because I didn’t want to frog it back, so there’s a spiral stripe running around the outside edge of the rug—I’m very happy with how it looks.

2. Applied what I learned from this tutorial, namely: increasing 3 stitches on each rounded end (and increasing 1 extra stitch on each end every 8th round, since pi = 3.14). And as suggested, I staggered the increases so that they wouldn’t be aligned and make the ends look hexagonal.

The original mat was dusty and slightly sun-bleached. I washed it in the washing machine with like colors, then frogged it to let the yarn dry more quickly and wound it into a ball once dry. The color variation is visible on the new rug, though I don’t mind at all.

The proportion of a rug changes as more rounds are completed—the ratio of length to width will decrease with every round.

What I’d do differently: I’d like to get better at getting the increases on the first round look more symmetrical—one side has a larger hole than the other.

I want to retry a rectangular mat crocheting into the front/back loop only to see if I can get a rectangular mat to lay flat.

Care: Machine wash, lay flat to dry.