I couldn't resist a bit more knitting. This time I made a holey scarf - a free pattern on Ravelry called the Swiss Cheese Scarf. (The link only works if you have a free Ravelry account.) Three skeins of fingering weight yarn (Araucania Solid #103), a size 3 bamboo circular needle, and 48,510 stitches later (give or take) and, voila.
Before felting, approximately 66" x 17" with 27-1/2 repeats of the 16-row pattern.
Before felting
Next step, a top loading washing machine, small load, hot water, 1 Tblsp laundry detergent. Ten minutes later, nothing had happened, so I added an old "unlinty" (lint might become embedded in the felt) towel and set the timer for another 10 minutes.
Yowza, very felted. I let it go another couple minutes (not sure why, but I guess I wasn't mentally prepared for it to be done yet) for a total of 22 minutes of agitation. I removed the scarf from the machine, placing it in a bowl of hot water, and rinsed in additional hot water until clear. Squeezed out as much excess water as possible, and laid it on a towel, under a small fan, to dry.
Voila. It's probably a tad overfelted, because it is more stiff than I intended, but I love it!! As I was knitting, I suspected that the Araucania would felt well (because the yarn liked to grab itself) and I knit loosely. However, it exceeded my expectations by felting to the point that there is no longer any stitch definition. I had hoped for that, but wasn't expecting it.
After felting, approximately 63" x 13.5".
Despite the holes, it is quite warm. I would like to make this again in a charcoal gray, maybe changing the dimensions a bit and felting it a bit less. I should add that this piece uses two dye lots. I bought two skeins on ebay for half price and the third, also on ebay, from a different seller that was a bit more expensive. When the third skein arrived, there was a visible difference with the other two. I considered my various options, but decided that I didn't really care and just added the third yarn to the end of the scarf. I like how the scarf subtly changes, in fact. :)
On a different topic, I was asked to post a photo of one of my recent pieces made from the bamboo jersey from FabricMart. I didn't plan to post this Teagarden T, which I made in September during the SSS challenge, because I've already made and shown this pattern several times, but here it is in rust bamboo jersey. This is for you, andib! :)
