“FELT” Like Fun!

 Jen & Kristy each purchased some “soap in a coat” at the fair on Saturday & we all quickly decided that we wanted to get the materials & give it a try ourselves. As I showed in the last post, among my spoils from Saturday were some lovely soaps and some colored wool batts for this project.

Last night, Jen hosted Kristy & I for an evening of crafting. After a simple summer meal of a delicious pasta salad (thanks Jen!) it was time to clear the table and get to crafting. First on our list was trying out the felted soap bars. I had printed out some instructions, we set up the dining room table with towels, piles of wool, assorted soaps & bowls of hot water. Before long, each of us was sudsy & had fun getting the wool to felt to the soap. We didn’t have a felting board, I used a spare hand towel to help with rubbing the wool into the soap. Within short order, we each had a plateful of assorted soaps to take home. As we were cleaning up the table, I noticed that the turquoise wool had bled onto the towels. As the soap dried, the turquoise one bled onto the paper towel it was drying on. So, I’m pretty sure that wool won’t be on the soap for much longer. We give this craft “3 pruned thumbs up” & plan to do it again. Hmm…I have all sorts of ideas brewing…

After we had our fill of felted soap, we turned our attention to another favorite of ours – knitting. Jen continued to make progress on a scarf. I was working on a new pair of socks (am way behind on blogging about summer sock progress…) Kristy has two projects going – a shawl with some of Diann’s curly mohair from last year’s fair & a felted bag. As Kristy worked on her projects, she had a notebook out to capture tips & tricks from me so that she can continue on the projects after her move at the end of the month.

In addition to fun with fiber, this crafting evening also had a different task on the agenda – helping Kristy update her resume as she prepares to move back to Kansas for the next chapter in her life. It seems like it was just yesterday (or maybe last month) that Jen asked me to help her little sister (via email) with her resume as she was preparing to graduate from college & move to Chicago for a job in 2004. Once Kristy moved to town, hanging out with Jen quickly evolved to hanging out with Jen & Kristy. Before long, Kristy had me teach her how to knit – her first project, a baby blanket based on the Grandma’s favorite pattern. Since then, Kristy has been a fiber pal – always up for my latest fiber outing…be it a yarn store, a festival, just sitting & knitting or anything else. Since my sister & I live so far apart, Kristy was a local little sister – we added Rebecca into the mix when she would visit & the “4 Kansas Sisters” could always count on a good time – be it tea at the Peninsula, scrapbooking retreats or trips over to Harbor Country.

Before long, it was time to pack up our crafting and call it a night. It seems like our lives have all been pretty busy lately – we used to get together & craft regularly – I’m glad that we were able to get in one last crafty time before Kristy’s departure.