And We're Off!

I felted the swatches, both came out well.  It was difficult to decide which one I wanted to proceed with, so I left the choice up to my daughter.  She chose the pinks & purples, which actually was my favorite!  I had to really beat the daylights out of the swatches to get them to felt properly.  I ran them in the washer about 4 times each.  I used an old towel to help with the agitation, but they still took a long time to felt.  Finally, they felted up to what I wanted.  The purple hues felted nice & thick.  It has streaks of the differents shades throughout, so it looks interesting.  The pinks didn't felt as much as I had hoped or wanted, I thought about washing it another time or two, but my daughter really liked the way it looked as is. 

Personally, I like the results of both so much, I'm probably going to make myself a felted hat from both yarns.  Especially since I have so much of each yarn.  I want to finish the case first, then I'll work on the hats after.  I'm not knitting any presents this year, except for the case, so my knitting time is "my" time! 

One thing I hated...both of these yarns were in hanks.  The pink is in small hanks, but the purple was in a huge hank, enough for a sweater.  Having to wind these into usuable balls was a pain.  Ugh...the tangles...the knots...ick.  That is one think about this craft that frustrates me.  I love the feel of the yarn in my fingers, but trying to untangle a mess is just too much.  I'd really rather be knitting.  The purple was especially difficult, because the hank was so huge.  It was just one long yarn...I hated cutting it, but I had to do it...my rewound ball was getting too huge to work with.  I chopped it up into 3 usable balls.  Since I'm probably not going to make a sweater with it at this point, it doesn't matter anymore, I guess! 

But they are done, thank goodness, & now I can get to work.  This is the part that makes it all worthwhile!