the saga of the felted bowl

Before I start on the felted bowl, I want to correct an omission from this week’s posts. I realized that, although I said “ooh, presents!” and “aren’t they great?”, I never actually thanked my secret pals for their gifts. So: Thanks, secret pals! You helped make my week.

I should begin the saga with a description of my mental image of the finished product. I was thinking of a pot that my aunt threw and gave my parents, sort of like this oil lamp except taller and squarer and with a larger opening (and no oil or wick-holder). So I knit a square, picked up stitches around the outside, increased to make it wider, stopped increasing for straight sides, and then decreased a little bit before adding the blue trim. When I cast off, I had this:

I was a bit worried, but I figured the shaping could show up more after felting, so I forged on ahead. (The fact that I knew I had enough extra yarn to reknit it helped with that decision.) After a run through the washing machine, I had this:

note: the pennies and T tokens in this saga are aids to my camera’s autofocus, and they also serve as scale “bars”

I’m not sure it’s really flat, more “puckered”, but it’s definitely not bowl-shaped. The next step: pulling out the scissors.

I cut bits out of the corners and seamed the sides back together with more of the blue. If it’s going to be thicker or wonky, using the body color might look more like a bug than a feature.

I’ve included this photo because it’s on the same table as the next two

I was happier with the cut and sewn bowl than the puckered hot pad version, but I was sufficiently unconvinced that I brought it to Anj‘s Fiber Thursday for consultations. It got a positive response, so I wove in the ends of the seaming yarn and brought it home to felt some more, since it remained floppier than I wanted. It went through the washer again this morning, and came out like this:

It’s still a bit wonky looking, whether from slightly uneven felting or from the unevenness of the way I decreased when I was adding the trim, but I think that’s just what a felted bowl is going to look like. At least, that’s what a Naomi-made felted bowl is going to look like. I save my remaining shreds of perfectionism for other things, like science. I’m happy with it as it stands, even though it’s still really not what I’d had in mind.

Materials and tools:
Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Chocolate, a little more than one skein
Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky in Blue Flannel, some leftovers of Anj’s
8mm bamboo circular needle, 20 or 24″
[scissors and darning needle; washing machine]

Start date: very late September
Completion date: November 12