Move over, Martha

I cannot commit to a craft.  I have scrapbooked, cross-stitched, latch-hooked, yoga-ed, and everything else under the sun for about 15 minutes.  And since the socktopus has proved difficult (he still doesn’t have a leg to stand on), I’ve set him aside TEMPORARILY and in the meantime taken up felting.  I don’t even know enough about it to tell you what it is, but I saw this very cute little bracelet project at Michael’s yesterday and picked it up.

Dear reader, I AM ALREADY DONE WITH IT!  This project is perfect if you have a short attention span.  I started it in the carpool line yesterday and finished it up this afternoon.  I shall now bore you with the details.

First, get your supplies together. The needle nose pliers are critical.  And so is a bandaid or two if you’re not adept at keeping a grip on said pliers.

I knitted the baubles.  It took me about 3 minutes to knit each one, and then another 4 or 5 to stitch them together.  When I was done with them, they looked like this.

Then, you stick them in a pillow case and throw them into the washing machine set on HOT water and HEAVY agitation.  Leave them in for 10 minutes, then take them out and rinse in cold water.  Squeeze them, and roll each ball like cookie dough in your hand.  The texture totally changes and they become like little felt balls.

Then the tedious part.  Thread a needle and work it through the ball and divide it into four little sections so that it looks like a flower petal.  This is where the needle nose pliers come in handy.  And where I broke the needle.

Like you really care about the broken needle, but it was pretty violent and memorable when it happened, so I’m recording it for posterity.

After shaping the petals and questioning whether I would ever finish anything ever in my life, I got to the fun part, which was threading it all on elastic thread that kept snapping and stinging my hand.

Even my hands are wrinkly.  There is no end to the misery….

But that part flew by.  After tying the ends, here’s the end result.  It’s fun and springy, and homespun and most of all, finished.

And, I’m going to GIVE IT AWAY in my very first bloggy give-away.  It’s stretchy so I’m going to label it one size fits all.  Leave me a comment if you want to participate.

If I can figure out the random number generator between now and then, I’ll pick a winner on Wednesday.