Black Merino to the Rescue!

A bit ago, I purchased a beautiful vintage wool coat at a local thrift shop. There was nothing wrong with it, except that it had 4 small rips right at the top & bottom of each of its vertical pockets. These are normal wear & tear problems. I wasn't sure how I was going to mend them; and Google-fu failed me on how to mend actual wool coats without it looking like crap.

But, a previous needle felted project gave me inspriation. I grabbed my felting needles, some black merino wool (for spinning), needle/thread, and set to work.

I darned as invisibly as I could along the tears, then took the black Merino wool (which was a PERFECT match to the wool coat, and set to needle felting the tears.

Before

After

This worked better than expected, and now the tears are basically gone, leaving me with a wonderfully warm long coat to wear.....now that the weather has turned into beautiful warm weather.

Go figure. :-)

Back from My Knitting Vacation

I'm pretty much back from my self-imposed knitting vacation of last week. The overall week was ever-so-slightly trying.

I got plenty of spinning done in the evenings, and I managed to do one fiber-related craft item that had been sitting in my Stash for quite some time. So I pulled it out to work on it, while I couldn't knit.

I had a kit from Lorna's Wool of these adorable felted sheep. The kit came with a felted egg, needles, some pretty silver & white locks, and some colored wool (fit only for felting as some of it was matted and there was lots of VM in it).

The instructions were pretty clear, and it took a bit to work the legs & head, but once I got the hang of it, it was relatively simple. However, I'm not quite sure felting is for "me", per se. I kept looking at all of the wool and thinking I could spin it (neps, matts, and all)....although I knew it'd be nasty to spin.

I guess I'm just not a felter at heart. Although I do love these sheep.

The black sheep is "Henry"
The white sheep is "Henrietta"

Don't ask me why I named those sheep in that fashion. They just "looked" like a Henry and Henrietta.