Sunday, February 4, 2007

The Lunchsack

After squirreling away change off and on for almost a year, I had my nose pierced in mid-January at Apocalypse Tattoo & Piercing (on Capitol Hill). I wish I had the name of the guy who did it, because the job he did was fantastic and I thus feel obligated to spread goodwill to all knitters who stick needles into things other than yarn. The piercing was painless and the hole healed (well, got past the oozy phase) in, literally, a week.

Yeah, I know that sounds pretty non-knitting related. The whole nose bit is superfluous. The point is what I did while bent over, soaking my nose in a cup of warm salt water to keep it clean and infection-free: I knit up Frances Sweicki’s “lunch bag.”

And I was going to post awesome photos of it, all felted and rigged up with a strap, clasps, and similar awesome doodads.

But that’s going to have to wait for another day. Having never felted before, I got optimistic and decided to hand-felt it, in my sink, with just my bare hands, the giant knitted beauty of the pre-felted bag, and a few gallons of scalding water.

Wool is itchy. Really damn itchy. And rubbing it furiously with soft hands results in itchy red spots. I gave up after half an hour and went to lotion my wounds. The thing is not yet felted. Into the machine, it’ll have to go. Damn it. I felt so ambitious this week.

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