mmm...the smell of wet wool

so, felting in an apartment building is not the easiest thing. first of all you have to pay for the washing machine. secondly the machine in my building lets you chose temperature but that's it, you can't chose cycle length or load size. I took a chance though last night & felted two tote bags. The exciting discovery is that the machine in my building also doesn't stop when you open the lid so getting the bags out to check how they were doing was quite a feat. I ended up letting them run through the wash cycle & then the first spin cycle (because there was no way to get them out once the spin cycle started) inside zippered pillow cases with a pair of jeans. all & all i think they came out ok...





i am much happier with how the red one came out than the brown one. i think the brown one may actually need to be felted a little more especially around the handles plus you can still see some of the stitches in it. though i'm thinking i may need to do this at a friends house who owns a machine we can actually check or i'll have to run it through a whole other cycle.

I put a handful of CD cases inside then during drying to give the bottom a nice square shape. Matt is so not thrilled with the smell of drying wool in the kitchen...it is a little strong. Hopefully it will fade away soon.

Now I have to decide whether to try my felted bowls at home or wait to use a friends washer as well. No time to think about it this weekend though as we are off to go camping in Yosemite for the weekend. Neither Matt nor I have been before and are really excited for it.

Oh & the best news...I became an aunt for the 4th time this morning. I hear he has a full head of blond curls...i can't wait to see.