Snugness and Smugness

Remember my last post, the one where I complained that so many of my projects have multiple starts and stops. Well, I've proved myself wrong once more.

I have a friend living on Vancouver Island, a place cold and damp through the winter, and for Christmas I thought she'd like a lovely, cosy felted-wool cover for her hot water bottle. Time is ticking away, and rather than knitting and felting one, I thought I'd maybe find a thrift-store wool turtleneck and start there.

The first thrift-store I went to I found this:



Beautiful pale grey and thick, but wait it's not just wool:



That's right, 100% cashmere. And thick and heavy too:



Wow! That's quite the find.

Yes, I know.

So I threw it in the washing machine. On hot. Twice.



Now it's the right size:



For all you non-knitters out there, once a woolen garment has been felted, the fibres fuse together and it can be cut and sewn just like fabric:



I shaped the bottom a bit, leaving enough to fold over at the back:



Then, with some matching thread:



whip stitched the edges closed:



I added some decorative blanket stitch in black silk yarn around the edges, using an embroidery reference book (because I'm hopeless at embroidery):



And I added a mother-of-pearl button to close it at the back:



And a little bit of needle felting for the front:



So it's all hers:



This entire process took a morning, and I'm feeling pretty pleased.