Meeting Highlights: Felted Purses

We had a great meeting in our new space. Nineteen showed up for the meeting and we had room to spare. We were able to have one table for those who wanted to attend but didn't necessarily want to work on the project at hand, and three tables arranged in a U shape to allow the instructor plenty of room to walk around and help those needed assistance. If you are a bit claustrophobic (like me) and haven't attended a meeting for awhile, give us another try; the new space is a huge improvement and gives our meetings a whole new feel. This place even has a coat rack so we don't have to sit on our coats for the entire meeting!

We had a short business meeting.  Some highlights:

• Copies of the proposed bylaws were distributed and approved by the general membership.
• It was proposed and approved by the general membership that we issue IOUs to Carol and Maxine, who had each written a hundred dollar check to our landlord for a damage deposit; in this way, we are not under any pressure to reimburse them before the group figures out how we will handle membership fees.
• Jeanne has agreed to create a badge for our group that will appear on our Ravelry group site; this will make it easier to locate us among the zillions of groups on the website.
• Cathy has begun moderating our Ravelry group and will facilitate discussions there; if anyone posts a question, Cathy will ensure a response.
• Carla has volunteered to lead our charitable efforts.
• Maxine continues to work on blog improvements; she has already taught Julie how to post to the blog, and if all goes well, the rest of your will be able to post pictures of your projects to our gallery.
• According to the bylaws, the executive board (to be elected at our February meeting) will determine how we handle meeting cancellations due to weather. In the meantime, it is advised that you check your email just after noon on the day of our next meeting if the weather is iffy; Carol will email a cancellation notice and also post a notice to our Ravelry group if we have to cancel.

Peggy distributed a pattern for a felted purse and had a variety of felted projects available for viewing. As you can see by the picture, there are plenty of ways to make the purse your own. Here are some highlights from her presentation.

• Don't bother to finish off any ends or weave them in. Once the project is felted, you can just cut the ends off.
• In order to felt you need hot water, some soap or baking soda and agitation. Put your item into the wash with some jeans and a couple of towels to ensure felting. Peggy has as top-loader and times the felting process, checking the progress about halfway through the cycle and then again about three-quarters of the way through the cycle. Some projects may need to have the "wash" time extended to ensure proper felting.
• Projects can also be felted in the dryer (Maxine is a proponent of this method). Heat and agitation are the key ingredients here, and you can check the progress at any time.
• Sharp sheers are all that's needed to make a handle in your purse, but you can use purchased handles as well. Some people sew the handles on with yarn, but Peggy uses jewelry wire from a craft store for a strong but invisible attachment. She also uses jewelry wire to attach some bling to the bags.
  
• You can embellish your bag with bling purchased from a craft store or large buttons. You can also make your own embellishments from polymer clay or use purchased pins.
• Before you felt your project, you can weave in some ribbon or novelty yarn; when the project felts, the ribbon provides a textural contrast. Synthetic eyelash yarns work well for this also; just add the yarn and crochet double strand--the eyelashes will sprout out from the smooth felted fabric for a nice contrast.
• Since felted material doesn't ravel, you can make slits wherever you want them. Peggy attached an I-cord decoration by cutting small slits into the bag and weaving the cord through the slits. The pattern for this bag (pictured above) was found in "Learn to Felt for Crocheters."
• Long handles can be a bit of a problem, the dilemma being whether to crochet it onto the bag (and have it end up too short)  or to felt it separately and sew it on later (can feel wimpy). Maxine has solved this by chaining two seven-foot long lengths and then slip stitching in the back loop of the chain (the "back bump") for the length of each. She begins and ends the cord, however, with three or four stitches of foundation single crochets for a flat "connector" that is then stitched onto the bag before felting. When felted, these chains produce the appearance of an I-cord. Any extra length can then be taken up with a knot at the top of the strap. These pictures illustrate a pre-felted and felted purse using this technique.

Peggy also made a felted hat (pattern available for purchase from the website) that was cuter than cute.  I have a feeling a lot of us are going to give felted hats a try.  As you can see by the first picture, the hat is huge pre-felting, and once sufficiently felted, fits like a dream.  Since Peggy felts in the washer, her biggest problem was finding a suitable shaped and sized bowl on which to dry and shape the hat.

Our next meeting will be February 11th.  Carol will take us through the problems associated with sizing a moebius and will teach us the special foundation chain upon which her moebius is constructed.  A basic pattern will be provided.

We're Moving to a New Meeting Location (January 2012)

Yes, it's official. We'll starting the new year off by moving to a new meeting location,

Prospect Park United Methodist Church, at  22 Orlin Ave SE, Minneapolis (just two blocks off University Avenue, 1 mile east of the main U of M campus, and 2 miles west of our former home at Borealis). The link to PPUMC website gives very thorough directions to the church using both I-94 and Franklin Avenue as reference points.

There is ample off-street parking available on Saturdays in the Pratt School parking lot, which is just across the street from the church (just click on the second picture so see a better view of church and parking lot). 





Entry to the building is through the front door of the church.  Take the stairs or elevator up to the second floor.  As you come off the elevator, our meeting room is on your left.

We will need to have a door keeper in place, as we do not want to leave the front door unattended.  Those arriving late can take the handicap ramp found on the left side of the property (see bottom photo).  That ramp leads to external doors to our space.  Just knock and we will let you in.

Felted Purses: January 14 Meeting Preview

Who doesn't love a new purse? Especially when it's a handmade felted purse. On Saturday January 14 at 2:30 pm, Peggy will lead us through making a purse and give us detailed instructions about how to do the felting process. (This meeting will be the first one in our new location at Prospect Park United Methodist church - see We're Moving post for more information.)

For this meeting you'll need to bring the following items:

• Crochet hook: Size K-10.5 (6.5 mm)
• Yarn: 2 skeins of 100% wool, 3 to 3.5 ounces per skein. Use two different coordinating colors if you want a band like the purses in the picture (these are three that Peggy has recently made). Make sure the wool is NOT labeled washable or "superwash" as washable wool will not felt. Also, you cannot use a wool/acrylic blend as the acrylic will prevent the yarn from felting. Peggy has had success with both Lion Wool by Lion Brand (1 skein = 3 oz, 158 yds) and Classic Wool by Patons (1 skein = 3.5 oz, 210 yds) - these yarns are available at most Jo-Ann and Michael stores. (A local yarn shop can also suggest additional yarns suitable for felting.)
• If you'd like, bring a printed copy of the pattern. (There will be ample printed copies available at the meeting.) The pattern that we're using is a free pattern available from the Lion Brands website. You need to register on the site to be able to view and print this pattern (registration is free and quick, they only ask a few questions). Click here for the pattern - if you've logged in to the Lion Brand site recently, you'll go straight to the pattern; otherwise, you'll have to login first.

Peggy has more advice for us about picking yarns and embellishments for this project:

If you want to use a variegated colored yarn for the body of the purse and a plain color for the band, that works well too. Be creative! I like to embellish my purses with a little "bling" from Michael's. I have made at least a dozen of these purses to be given as gifts. Once, I did a gray body with a black band and used a cameo for the bling. One of my friends liked it so much I gave it to her! I have tried all different colors and they all looked great. I did a number of purses in purple with a lime green band (those went like hotcakes too).

If you've tried felting in the past and had success or failure, bring your work in to show to the rest of us. Peggy will bring in the purses in the picture for our inspiration! We're looking forward to seeing you and your felting projects at the January meeting!

Meeting Highlights: Destash Swap Meet

Shark Week feeding frenzy?  No, that was us, faced with an almost alarming amount of yarn and books to swap and share.  Everything was put on the table, with each donor giving a brief description and explanation of the donated item.  After everyone had a chance to look at the stash, auctioneer Maxine went item by item through the yarn stash.  If two people wanted the yarn, a quick negotiation was held, with the yarn going to the person who wanted it more than the other; if both people wanted it equally,  a quick drawing was held.  Six people were in on the drawing for a bag of rust-colored bamboo blend skeins.  There was something for everyone, from thread to Christmas novelties to bulky weight yarns.  Someone contributed a small stack of vintage thread crochet magazines and books of doily patterns--too bad we didn't film the wheeling and dealing that took place to divvy those up, as it was amazing!  Almost everything found a home.

(This is a first for us: not one single project was held up for show and tell. Not one! We were so anxious to get our grubby mitts on the swap yarns and books that bragging rights were the last things
on our minds. Check this space in three months time to see projects made out of this stuff.)

After the exhilaration of the swap, we held a brief business meeting.  Pictures of the proposed new meeting space were passed around and the price discussed, as well as all the pros and cons.  We voted to go ahead and secure the space for six months; Carol and Maxine will finalize arrangements.  We have enough money in our Treasury to secure the room for at least three months.  The new space is located in Prospect Park (near the Textile Center), not far from our current location.

We have been very loosely organized (never even elected officers!) but now need a bit more structure, particularly if we have the financial responsibility of renting a meeting space.  It was suggested that we explore the idea of dues; currently, we have a suggested donation of $1 for each meeting attended.  Five people volunteered for a steering committee that will develop a basic outline for our organization, from officers to bylaws.  The committee's recommendations will be presented for approval by CTC members in a month or two.  We have a meeting schedule that goes out through April, so the program committee needs to meet again to work on some new topics.

Please continue to think about how you can contribute to the group's mission.  We already have specific volunteer offers regarding the blog and charity projects, but we need more helpers.

The next meeting will be January 14, 2012 in our new space!  Peggy will lead us through a felting project to produce a handbag.  A materials list and pattern link will be provided in the January meeting preview.  You will need two skeins of 100% wool worsted weight yarn (no super-wash).

Carol's Moebius

A number of people saw my moebius at the November meeting and asked me for the pattern.  Fortunately or not, I did not use a pattern.  I had done a search for moebius patterns on Ravelry but found nothing that would work with the yarn I intended to use, so I made my own pattern.

There are some interesting facets to the moebius that present some design challenges.  The first challenge is the starting chain.  Once you have crocheted your starting chain, you twist one end 180 degrees and slip stitch it to the opposite end--easier said than done.  Also, in many designs, the beginning chain appears very obvious; unless you want that beginning chain to be a design element, it can look like a flaw.  The second challenge is to design a stitch pattern that does not have obviously different front and back sides--unless you want that difference to be a design element.  As you crochet the moebius, you crochet both edges at the same time, only one edge will show the right side of the stitch pattern and the other the wrong side.  Another challenge was my choice of yarn, which is self-striping.  I didn't want the yarn to fight with a stitch pattern; as the garment grows from the center outwards toward the edges.

I took 2 classes on beginning chains at the CGOA conference; one was dedicated solely to foundation chains, the other to non-chain beginnings.  I used a foundation double crochet (fdc) lattice to begin my mobius.  The fdc is shown on the bottom of the picture at the left, with a second row of dc lattice.  After examining my first completed moebius, I think I should have used a foundation triple crochet (ftc) lattice instead (upper sample).  As you can see by the two samples, the triple lattice ends up the same height as the actual dc lattice of the mobius.

The next picture is of my dc mobius, in which I crocheted into each dc  of the row below.  The green stitches in the center are the fdc lattice. You can see that the stitch height is noticeably shorter.  If doing this pattern again, I would use the ftc instead and use dc throughout the rest of the moebius.  The yarn is Noro Silk Garden with an I hook with 75 stitch units (one unit being a dc and ch, ending with a dc 1, ch1, dc).  I used 2 full skeins.  The stitch pattern was deliberately simple to feature the yarn, not the stitch pattern.  There are some basic moebius directions on Ravelry. 

My second moebius was made of Noro Silk Garden Sock with an H hook.  The foundation is about 125 stitch units as this garment is intended to cover the shoulders.  The same fdc lattice was used.  Instead of putting a dc in every dc to create a lattice, I put my stitches into the chain space to create a mesh.  I randomly used blocks of  hdc and dc stitches.  DC were put into stitch blocks composed of hdc, and hdc into blocks of dc.  This was done to give a subtle shift to the rows, to de-emphasize the stripey look caused by the finer yarn and the larger moebius loop.  The colorways in the two garments aren't the same, but they are similar.  However, the end result is very different.

There have been some requests to make this moebius the subject of an upcoming meeting.  Web 2.0 is the topic for February, but because of equipment requirements, we might want to schedule that meeting for a later date and do the moebius instead.  Also, basic garment construction is scheduled for the spring.  If we do devote a meeting to the moebius, I will provide a written pattern.  The main focus would be on learning how to create the fdc lattice upon which the garment is constructed.