adventures in hot water

Alright, I should be asleep right now, but I just had to report the relative success of my first attempt at felting! I was trying to wait until we had less laundry that had to be done before I tied up the washing machine with felting my buttonhole bag, but I'd come to realize we'd never have that much laundry clean (at least, not before we leave to faire les vacances on Friday). And the felting only ties up the washer, not the dryer - the dryer is where the backup comes in our washing cycle. Our dryer is a piece of shit, especially when the lint hose needs to be cleaned out, as it does now. Oy, our washer and dryer - we bought them for $85 from the previous tenants of our apartment who just didn't want to bother moving them when they left (we will probably try to cut the next tenants the same deal when we move out.) They're better than having to schlep everything to the laundromat all the time - but only barely. The washer is basically fine, but the dryer regularly takes three 90-minute drying cycles or more to actually dry a load of clothes. Every so often, I end up at the laundromat anyway, if we've accumulated more loads that we need done right away than our crap dryer can handle.

So anyway, I went ahead and threw the bag in the washer, tied inside a pillowcase, with two old towels and two heavy plastic hairbrushes for agitation (thanks for that tip, ErLeCa!). Regular wash cycle, hot wash, cold rinse. After the first go-through, I didn't think it was felted enough, so I threw the whole lot in again. When I peeked into the washer after the second wash, I saw the bag had slipped out of the pillowcase, so it definitely got more felted, but it also had more weird pilling and fluff-balls attached to it. And - I dunno if this is just due to our washer, or something in our dank, damp creepy basement where the washer/dryer is located, or if it's just the usual wet-wool smell on steroids, but the bag has this weird kind of reek to it. Anyone out there have any suggestions for perhaps getting that smell out if it's still so prominent once the bag is dry?

It's sitting on a chair now, stuffed full of rolled-up towels. Like I said, I think it came out pretty well, considering it was my first time felting, and I was only giving it a fraction of my attention tonight. It's a little creased and lumpy in spots, but I tried to smooth those out as best I could, and I can steam problem bits to smooth them more once the bag's all dry, right? The bottom is not quite as solid as I was expecting it would be, so if I actually use the bag for transporting anything, I think I will line it with something first.

I did take pictures, but of course, I still haven't installed my camera on this computer yet, and my old computer has been de-networked, I think, so... I promise I will make uploading pictures a real priority. I'm taking my laptop on our trip, so with any luck, I will have time to get that all figured out before we get home. I will post my itinerary soon, should any of you want to stalk me while I am away.

Now playing: "My Adidas" ~ Run-D.M.C