I am returning to my scientific roots to give you the results of my felting project -- I took pictures at 5 minute intervals so that I could demonstrate felting "kinetics". Yup. Once a geek always a geek.

This post is very picture heavy. I apologize in advance to anyone with a slow connection. I also apologize for taking the pictures with the bag on a dark green towel. I would have used lighter, but the bag turned the water in my washer nice dark blue, so I didn't want to risk any of my light colored towels (which are all pretty good) and I didn't want water getting all over everywhere. I used the hanger (my bag retrieval device) for comparison.

5 Minutes
10 Minutes
15 Minutes
20 Minutes
25 Minutes
Drying
Fabric Detail

Enormous to finished in ~25 minutes. Pretty amazing. Felting is just one of those things that blows me away. I'm definitely pleased with the results but I am wondering if any of the felting experts in the audience can offer me a suggestion for smoothing out the flap of the bag. As you can see in the second-to-last picture, the shape of the flap leaves a little to be desired. I think its a little wider than it needs to be so I am not sure that stretching it is the solution. Would steaming help me? For those of you who steam, do you use a steamer or can you get away with an iron? I'm tempted to use the iron a little bit with a damp towel between the iron and the flap.

I think this yarn felts fabulously! I included a detail of the felted fabric in the last photo so that the gorgeous green and blues are more obvious. As Rob guessed on my TagBoard, it is Cascade 4009. I've now felted BrownSheep, Noro and Cascade and I think the Cascade is my favorite -- not too fuzzy and definitely a wonderful felted texture.

If I were to do this pattern again, I would do the handle as an I-cord instead of 8 stitches mattress stitched together. I might also be tempted to make the strap a little longer. But otherwise, this was a great pattern -- easy to follow and fun to see come together.

Before I close (and try to figure out what I am going to work on next) I want to put up some photos of the other thing I finished today... my first Opal sock!

This sock turned out a little bigger than I anticipated. It fits okay on top, but is a quite a bit too big for me in the foot. You may also have noticed something a little strange going on at the toe...here's an up close look at that toe:

It's almost as if I started the toe decreases with a new ball of Opal with a different pattern but the same colors. The color intervals are quite regular. It almost looks like the Tiger pattern. Is such strangeness common for Opal? I think I will have to see for how long this stretch of oddness goes. Hopefully not for too much longer, or this poor sock won't have a mate. Looking at the exterior of the skein, it looks like it gets back to normal sometime. I will investigate further after I finish this post.

Because I do not want to rip out all the work in this sock to make it fit me, I think I will make the second the same size and give them to my wonderful father (I hope that's okay, Emma! I promise to find another skein of Brazil for myself!). Unlike my husband (who refuses to wear anything striped or multicolored on his feet) my dad is open to colorful things (he actually told me that I could make him a sweater out of the same color Silk Garden I made for myself), and will love the warm socks. He's made so many beautiful things for me (he makes beautiful handcrafted hardwood furniture) that it will be a real pleasure to give him something warm and wonderful back.