Do you remember the old Palmolive dish liquid commercials with Madge doing a manicure using Palmolive? Well, after felting 50 cat toys, I was in serious need of Madge to do a manicure! But look at this:
Completed cat toys
That is my pile of cat toys. All done, stuffed with cat nip and jingle bells, sewn up, with long yarn tails. You can find them here in my online store. I’ll have them at my next craft show as well as here at the farm! Give your feline friend a treat for Valentine’s Day!
Tennis elbow. Torn ACLs. Pulled hamstrings. I’ve even heard of muscle cramps from too much treadling on a spinning wheel. But I think I have acquired “felter’s thumb”!
Last week, I set about my goal of felting 50 cat toys. I did 10 on Wednesday. I usually limit the time felting to a couple hours – because that is as long as my hands can take being in dish soap. With the first felting action on Friday of holding my little plastic form in my left hand, wrapping fiber around the plastic, adding some hot water and tapping the dry fiber into the soapy water with my thumbs, a pain shot up my right thumb. It was quite odd, since I hadn’t noticed any discomfort at the end of the felting session on Wed. I use my right thumb to do most of the squishing of the dry fiber into the water and wet fiber, so it seemed to complain the most. I did finish 10 toys on Friday, but took the weekend off. I just finished my quota of 10 for today and my thumb didn’t hurt too much. We’ll see what tomorrow brings – no day of rest! I want to have this felting job done. Soap will soon be in my felting future.
Here are the first 20 cat toys. They are stuffed and sewn shut. They are ready for some kitten who thinks it is a lion to chase it and wrestle it to the ground.
Today I began to work on a new goal – 50 cat toys by winter’s end. (not that I’ve completed my other goals, just diversifying)
Ready to be filled
I have been a felting fool of late!
Completed!
These 67 bars of felted soap went to meet their maker! Their soap-maker, that is. The folks from All Things Herbal picked these up. I still have 46 bars here, 8 of which I felted today.
Below is the before shot.
Knitted
I knit these 5 pair of mittens. If you count the boards in the flooring, you can see they are about one board width smaller below.
Felted
And then I felted them. So warm and cozy.
In the works
Above are soon-to-be cat toys. They are currently just puffed up felted blobs of alpaca fiber drying on a rack. But I’ll stuff with cat nip and sew the hole shut and some lucky kitty will get them for Christmas!
Wow! Three felting projects, three different felting methods. There is no end to the ways to use the wonderful alpaca fiber!
Nearly done:
Nine pair of wrist warmers
The cream and green pairs are complete. The mustard yellow just need the frilly edge and seams sewn. They will be listed soon!
In the middle:
Ten cat toys
These will be cat toys. The felted outside just needs to dry a little longer. Then I will stuff with cat nip and a jingle bell and sew up the hole.
On the horizon:
22 skeins of yarn
This will become wrist warmers some day soon.
This Friday, Aug 5 is Pie Day in Braham. We will be there! Please come and check out our booth.
Next Saturday, Aug 13 is the St Michael Daze and Knights festival. We’ll be there too!
I’m starting to sign up for fall craft shows, so keep an eye on the Events page of my website so you don’t miss out.
Last week I made a bunch of cat toys.
A trio of toys
And here they are.
Completed cat toys
Felted alpaca ovals are stuffed with catnip and jingle bells and sewed tight with alpaca yarn. They have long yarn ends for your kitties to play with. Cats love them!
Anyone remember these? What is it?
Can you guess?
Maybe if you have cats, you recognize the catnip in the jar. This is the makings for cat toys. I wet felted alpaca fiber around a small oval of heavy plastic, cut a small slit in the fiber after felting to remove the plastic and fulled the little fiber pockets. Once they are completely dried, I will put some locally grown dried cat nip and a jingle bell in each. Then I’ll lace up the holes with alpaca yarn. Do you need a treat for your furry friend? Make one of these, or get one from me for $5.
Wow! I got so much done last week. I had a lot to finish – since Week 4 is going to be really short. Here’s how it went:
Cat toys – I reduced my goal from 15 to 10 and finished those 10! $5.
Ready for play
Toddler mittens – 5 pair complete – Yay!
Little mittens in a row
Ladies mittens – 4 pair complete, 1 pair to be felted!
Ladies mittens
Baby socks – 10 pair knit! Look at this heap of little socks!
Yikes! That's a mess of socks
So far only 3 have their seam sewn. I’m waiting on back ordered yarn to make 2 more pair of blue!
Socks complete!
Baby hats – I have finished one of each color. I mis-calculated the yarn I would need to make 2 hats and 2 pair socks of each color, so my new goal is to use up all the yarn on hats.
Week Four’s Schedule:
Monday – felt more soap, 15 bars of Citrus Spice. It’s been spreading its fragrance through the house as it finished it final curing. Yum!
Tuesday – my spinning guild meets, so I’ll work on baby hats between shopping, eating and visiting!
Wednesday and Thursday – finish baby hats and baby socks!
Friday – pack up the truck for the trip to Braham and wrap up all loose ends before the show. I have an hour drive, so will have to leave about 6:30 AM. I’ll be at the First Annual Fall Craft Fair in Braham. If you are in the area – stop by the high school.
And I should add, I picked up one more show. It is a fundraiser on November 15 for the Zonta Minneapolis Club.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alpaca, baby hats, baby socks, Braham, cat toys, craft fair, inventory, Knitting, mittens, yarn, Zonta
There’s just not enough time in a day! I’m doing pretty good on the tasks so far. I made 10 (I reduced from the goal of 15) cat toys, but still need to stuff and sew them! I have 4 pair of toddler mittens knit, but need to sew up the seams. I have yarn dyed to knit another pair of ladies mittens, plus I have 2 pair of ladies mittens completed, one pair to felt, and one pair to sew the seams. Oh, and baby hats are coming along, too.
As you can see, it is the sewing that drags me down. But Darryl has meetings tonight, I don’t have to make supper, there are good TV shows, and I can sit and sew! Pictures when I complete a task! Hopefully, that will be soon!
The Hollyhock Blog 