A-Feltin' we will go

First, the good news...

The felted princess shoes are going swimmingly. They felted up beautifully...

...and fit the princess's feet.

I still need to put on buttons and button loops to hold the straps shut, and I am thinking about doing some embroidery/embellishment with some of the leftover sparkly yarn.

The bad news is that the princess hat has, shall we say, issues. It is the same yarn as the shoes and felted beautifully...

...however, the fit leaves a LOT to be desired:

Next trip to JoAnn's, I am going to pick up another skein of Paton's Classic Wool and start over. I think it was the felting, not the pattern, so this time I will try to find a time for felting with fewer distractions and see if that goes better. Hopefully, taking it out sooner will be the key. That whole "check felting progress every five minutes"? Yep, not just blowing smoke.

I am anxiously awaiting my yarn for the Secret of the Stole II. I ordered it last Thursday, but due to various glitches in the new warehouse at Knit Picks, it didn't ship until today. So think speedy delivery thoughts on my behalf as the first clue comes out in 9 days! I may try some swatching before it gets here as I have some Gossamer in the stash, and if I understand correctly, Gossamer, Shadow, and laceweight Bare are basically the same yarn, just hand-painted, heathered, and undyed respectively. It will look different, but at least I will have a good idea of needle size in case the yarn arrives at the last minute.

I actually got a little spindle time in earlier this week. After reading about it in Knittymama's blog, I am planning on joining Spin My Wheel (or in my case, Spin My Spindle). And, if that's not enough to keep me entertained (HA!), I am also starting another blog. The new blog is going to be less about staying in touch with the outside world and more about just having a place to keep track of stuff. For now, it will be mostly books we read. I am finding that I keep checking out the same books after forgetting that I have already read that one by my favorite author. I also want to keep track of some of our favorite read-together books and topics.

I still have a pile of pictures and blog fodder from our Iowa trip that I will hopefully get around to. Just a teaser for now: Marshalltown, Iowa has a used car dealership name Clemons. C-Lemons? They also have the local Chevy/Pontiac gig, but the sign that keep catching my eye every time we drove to and from the hotel was the used car lot. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up!