sally
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Thursday challenges?I'm home from work today (been at a conference for a few days and got back very late last night) and I have 4 felted hats to at least start off today, ideally to get as far as first machine shrinking. This is a bit of a mammoth task at the best of times and I'm feeling particularly tired today, plus I have dance class starting again tonight.
Wondered if anyone who was at home and working on woolly things wanted to do a few challenges? Something like 'before x oclock I will do...' and report back. I find it really helps keep me going when I'm this tired but can't give in to it.
So, my first challenge to myself is to post this then spend 15 minutes tidying the kitchen, then I'm going to lay out the fibre for the first hat and get the first wetting and hand felting done by 12.
Will report back as soon as I have done it and will set my next challenge then 
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natalie
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I'm up for this.
Before 12 o'clock I will dump a load of skeins in the sink to soak, make up new stock solutions, and get the dyespace ready to go (plastic, newpapers etc etc.)
See you at 12...
...ish
natalie
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sally
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ok, just dumped the first hat blank in the washing machine, so I have 5 minutes spare for a cuppa before the next one.
My next challenge is to lay out and pre-felt a second hat by 1.00, also round up a small load of laundry to go in the wash with it.
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natalie
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Did it.
Stock solutions done and plastic sheeting everywhere.
Next challenge.
6 skeins pink based yarn by 1.00.
n (running shoes on now)
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sally
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next hat is having its quick swish in the machine and I've trimmed and first blocked the first one. I feel awful though, sick and shivery. Hope I havent come down with anything  I'm going to have some soup and sit in a heap and have a doze for an hour I think, call it lunchtime.
Then I have to do some bookbinding for an hour, so thats the 2-3 slot for this afternoons challenge
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natalie
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Got a bit slowed up by a phone call.
4 done so far.
Off to do next 2 now.
n
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natalie
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4 more done
n
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sally
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ok, two books sewn and the spines are setting.
Bit of a dilemma now, I still have two hats to make but I don't think I can face crawling round on the floor laying out more felt, so I'll finish those books in half an hour, maybe I should have a nice bath and try to chill out a bit whilst they set.
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natalie
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Phew!
You are making me work hard Sally!
4 more done in different colours this time.
I need to tidy up now though, and a cup of tea is in order.
They are all drying on the front rail of the Aga, eight pink based skeins and four in a new colourway I haven't tried before. These are all softer colours than I have dyed recently, so perhaps the time of year is having an influence on me.
Definitely need a cuppa though.
Do we get to see the hats and the books?
I've never tried bookbinding, it seems very technical.
natalie
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mo
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Hi girls
have just opened up this segment and am in awe of your output. Well done to both of you. I am stuck in the office and wishing I could join in.
Keep up the good work
Mo
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mo
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Hi girls
have just opened up this segment and am in awe of your output. Well done to both of you. I am stuck in the office and wishing I could join in.
Keep up the good work
Mo
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Cabbagepatch
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have just got in from a hectic day at work and feeling very tired. however after reading this thread, i clearly need to take some multivitamins to boost my energy levels!
please could we have a weekend lets get busy challenge? only so much us bored office workers can do in the evenings 
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natalie
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Excellent idea, we just need a good name for it, and everyone doing it can log in throughout the day and report progress.
Sally, are you feeling better?
natalie
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sally
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bit better thanks, just got back from bellydance class and don't feel quite so yuk now, just tired  Off to bed now, got work tomorrow
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spinningsue
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I like this idea but you have made me feel lazy!  While you were both working so hard I was cursing trains and shop-shop-shopping! Weekends would be better for me too because of work (even though I have managed to score 2 days off this week!)
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Spinning Fishwife
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Thursday challenge?
Get in late witth kids so challenge is to make tea before they kill each other. Also feed Hubby in the ten minute gap between him coming home from work and heading out for School Board. Get kids bathed/do homework/jammies. Reading for small one. Bedtime for small one. Reading for big one. Bedtime for big one. Feed Cats. Change litter. Feed self. Tidy up. Sort out school stuff for Friday.
If I`m really lucky I`ll have finished this by 9.30pm. Usually it`s nearer 10pm. So my knitting challange for the night will be to sit down and do half an hour of my daughters plain, untaxing stocking stitch sweater before I fall asleep.
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cledry yarner
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Right, sally and n - I'm keeping an eye on you two 'cos I know what you're both like Any sign of you doing too much (well, more too much than you ususally do  ) and it's off to bed with no cocoa.
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sally
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mmm, cocoa. What a nice idea
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wellington womble
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Oooh - cocoa, that's a fabulous idea - sadly, we have run out of suitable alcohol to put in it (humph!)
I haven't done anything today except load the diswasher, go to work, come home, load the dishwasher, cook dinner, find the sofa, pack a box of books (we have to pack them all away to sell the house, so I have promised to do a little every day) change the water on the hams and collapse in front of the internet. I'm going to clear out a drawer (just one) and then bugger off to bed!
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DianeM
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I work best under pressure too I'm really the world's biggest procrastinator.
Meet you back here next Thursday?
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sally
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today is my day off this week, but sadly I think most of it is earmarked for housework. We have a visitor coming this afternoon that I need to be tidy for, so although the projects are looking high, I won't be able to get near them until at least 4pm when he's been and gone.
I am hoping to skein up some wool though for hat kits, that shoud be do-able around the general dusting and hiding of junk 
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feltedfibers
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Thursday is a good day for me too so will join you and make it a "fibre day" it might make me more focused - one lives in hope!!
Jenny.
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wellington womble
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I have been very good, and had a very hardworking weekend. So far we have cleared all the books from the spare room, lugged them into storage, taken down the shelves, filled in the holes, re-distributed most of the junk and cleaned it and put a bed in there. It now looks like a spare room and is ready for sale (except for a lick of paint). The downside is we now have to do the same with his office, and mine, which are much worse! And finish bits and pieces over the rest of the house. I also did ALL the housework (phew!)
I have made a start, and have cleared out my craft cupboard and sorted out my projects-in-progress pile, and sent most of the books to storage, but there is still my desk to sort out, and all my files and paperwork, not to mention the holes and the painting, and the garden, and all the odd jobs that somehow never quite get done (the velux blind, the bathroom light, the hole that the dog chewed, the sofa cover, the odd spots on the carpet) maybe we'll just stay here! I'm knackered!
I have kept out three projects - an almost finished cardigan (just needs putting together and the neck doing - that's first) a nearly finished cardi (just a sleeve to go - that's next) and a hat, scarf and gloves for me. then it socks for Christmas for the family. When the harvest's all sorted (I'm still trying to find a spare minute to make sloe gin, plum jam and apple jelly and cook the hams) I plan to spend a day or two felting, and then I'll be caught up. Hopefully that will leave me free to start spinning in the new year with the drop spindle. Mum wants to buy me a wheel for my birthday in March, so that should work out quite nicely.
Oh - and a whole black bag of yarn that I seem to have acquired somewhere along the line - I don't recall buying that! I will buy no more yarn (except richly coloured chenille that I'm building a collection for something multi-coloured for mum! But nothing else!)
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feltedfibers
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Thursday Chllenge:-
A while back I finished a length of felt using merino, silk, knitting yarns, muslin etc all dyed in blues and greens felted onto a navy muslin. I have been putting off cutting into this length to make a waistcoat but today is the day - out come the sissors!! why I am so worried about cutting out a pattern? Is it because I have made the length of felt and am too precious with it, I have no idea so will get on with that today. I think I will blanket stitch around the edges. I also need to tidy my wool stash so this will take me up to lunch time when i'll call back with a coffee....
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Catherinechaos
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Your felt sounds like good stuff. There is loads of felt around at the moment, scarves, little flowers and bags etc and its a really good standard. Do you think this is handfelt cos it is so even and perfect. If so, to get it like that is it just practise?
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feltedfibers
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Most of its hand felted, some felters are using sheets of prefelts from manufacturers and then wetting and rolling etc which saves laying out the fibres. I have tried this but missed the hands-on laying of fibres and it is quite expensive to buy.
I prefer to felt in the traditional way but on some larger pieces when it comes to making a few meters of felt I have been using my Embellishing machine 'Easy Needle' which meshes the fibres into the muslin therefore helping me do a lot of the work.
Working this way I can sit in the arm chair with a cat litter tray on my lap making small peices of prefelt whilst watching a film/TV etc when I have a pile I then lay them on the muslin and run them under the embellisher, its handy to do a few every night, when I have all the pieces on the muslin perhaps 3 - 4 meters of 45" wide I then wet down and start the felting process.
Just an easy way for me to work, it may not suit others but worth giving it a go if you want a few meters of felt.
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feltedfibers
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Well its past 1 oclock, I have cut out my waistcoat from a paper pattern and sewn the shoulders and sideseams, dident waste much felt, what is left I will make into a bag, I am quite please with it and will take a photo later and put on my blog. I am half way through clearing and tidying my stash of wool etc, at the same time I am on the hunt for tops suitable for a firm felted hat, have bought one of those Hat forms that has a nice wide brim and have only used it once so am dying to use it again.
This afternoon I will find the said wool, finish tidying the boxes and hopefully get the wool wetted out ready to make the hat. Not forgetting of course there is dinner to make!! oh dear..hey its a nice warm day I will do salad and new potatoes thats an easy dinner.
Back later...
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feltedfibers
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Now the end of the day, I have got nearly all done that I set out to do but I guess if I hadent of put it in writing things wouldent of been done..
I have decided to put a trim of dyed muslin around the neck of the waistcoat which I will be doing over the weekend also thinking of working blanket stitch around the edges of bottom and armholes - still thinking of that step!
The main thing is it is cut out and sewn together, it is a step that I kept trying to do but failed as I was worried about cutting into the felt - silly but true.
My wool stash is all sorted, bagged and boxed up, I can now see what colours I have got and how much as I have listed all the information.
Found some wool tops suitable for my hat but dident get it laid and wet out so that too will be over the weekend, perhaps I will make a Saturday Challenge for myself to keep motivated as it really works when I write it down.
Its time for a large brandy now...night night...
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