Felting Frenzy - Kinda Quick Knits for Feb and March

**Updated to included post felting pictures.

In case you haven't noticed I get a bit obsessed with projects or techniques and kinda go from there until a new type of project or technique catches my eye.

Lately that has been felting. First it was the French Press Slippers for my sister.

Then I had more "scrap" yarn than I knew what to do with, especially because I'd gotten enough yarn to do two French Press Slippers in different colors.

Initially, I thought it'd be great to have another pot holder for myself. So I played with instaria to make this:

(For some reason it shrank equally length and width wise. So my over compensating for length just meant I got a rectangular pot holder instead of a square like I'd hoped.)

But then Partner and I started talking in ernest about getting married so I started to think of felted flowers, especially those from Nicky Epstein's Knitted Flowers book. This was actually the non-felted "Wallflower." But it's such a pretty flower that I couldn't help but do it as my first. I made it with five petals instead of four because I'm oddly superstitious and 4 is an unlucky number in Taiwanese/Chinese tradition - it sounds similar to the word for death.

I think with this flower I'm going to sew beads onto it to represent the stamen and anthers. This one in particular will be a corsage for the family instead of fresh flowers so that they have an additional memento from the wedding. But I'm also going to make a bouquet of felted flowers (likely roses and trumpet flowers) for decoration. Still debating what kind of fresh flowers if any I'd like to walk with. But I have over a year to figure that out.

But then Partner took one look at Sister's slippers and told me he wanted a pair too. And then I remembered I NEED new slippers too. The ones I have now are worn to the soles. And they stink. I would throw them in the washer but I think they'd fall completely apart if I did that. So These are testers for Partner's black slippers with my scrap yarn.

These are Lara Neel's Short-Row Slippers. They are made for women so I'll modify the pattern for Partner. But I had to get an idea of what they would look like first. This is my code for being a selfish knitter. Me first than whoever comes next. That's about as selfish as I get though. I make more stuff that I would know what to do with and like being able to give stuff away.