Lessons Learned

Some things are hard even if you have all the skills and patience in the world. Perseverance will generally win out, but you may still not be in love with the process. Sounds like one of those terribly important life lesson journal entries..... it's not. I generally have these brilliant Eureka moments complete with flashes of light, trumpets blaring and the sound of the multitude of adoring fans cheering, when i finally understand something completely that had been escaping my mental grasp. Well I had a flash this afternoon, no not a hot flash but the stark flash of self realization that not all things known are things I enjoy. I was finishing the very last bit of the Cream Galway wool Lucy Bag, all I had left was to kitchener stitch join the handles and sew in a few tails. Kitchener wooped my behind, it took 4 tries for one handle and 6 tries for the second, please note I actually managed to get worse instead of better. The second handle was still not perfect but I also knew the felting process would hide it.

On to felting, unlike most knitsters I felt my bags in the kitchen sink. It's a good work out and I get to control the amount of felting. In this case I could actually feel the magic moment at which the bag gave up resisting. The whole thing started to feel a little bit gummy and the fibers just started to mesh together. It went pretty quick from there of course getting to that point felt like an eternity, at one point Lucien took pity on me and gave it a turn as well. The Galway did felt to a nice thick fabric really surprising for such a light colored yarn. I am really pleased that this project turned out just the way I envisioned, I just added another on of my pins and it is now perfect. I even went ahead and added it to my Ravelry projects and will deliver it to Karen's shop ASAP. So if you are anywhere near The Sassy Knitter in Aiken, SC stop by and see it in person. You can of course sign up for the class too, I promise I will perfect my kitchener technique by the time the class is in session.