02.02.15 Doing a second one of these now. I decided to try the washing machine for felting this time. I cut up some small pieces of an old hand towel to stuff inside both the head and body, so the insides would not felt together. Then I just threw it in with a load of towels and set the water temp to “hot.” Then I put it in the dryer with the towels as well.

I had okay results. It definitely felted some, but it will need one or maybe two more rounds to get to the same place as the manually felted one. I live in an apartment building with a coin-op laundry facility. On the washing machines, you can select “hot,” but the water is only somewhat hot, and can run quite tepid depending on water use in the building at that time. So that might be the issue.

Not sure if I will continue using the machine, or simply give up on that and get a 5 gallon bucket and a plunger and just do it that way.

01.30.15 I actually learned how to crochet to make the arms for this guy. I was able to finish those and add them today. I soaked them in a mixture of 50/50 Elmer’s Glue and water and let them dry, so as to make them stand out from the body a bit.

01.26.15 Made these little snowmen from some stash yarn for the hat and scarf, some embroidery floss for the nose and face details, and roving for the body.

The body is felted, something I experimented with quite a lot. I would felt it, then let it dry some and then decided to do more felting. I wound up going back to the felting 2-3 times before I got the texture I was going for. You can see the progression of the felting in the photos.

Of course, I also had to re-do the scarf and hat because I did those before felting and my first several were way too big or not shaped quite right. I also made the middle of the scarf narrower so as to fit better around the snowman’s neck.

The body is stuffed with pinto beans, which weights these guys nicely.

I still need to crochet some “twig” arms out of embroidery floss before these are done. I plan to stiffen them with some Elmer’s Glue and then attach them using super glue, which is how I attached the carrot nose.

Notes on felting:
The original height was 5” and after felting it was 3.75”. I felted in the kitchen using very hot water, a silicon pot holder with grippy ridges on it. Lots of re-dunking in very hot water and applying a lot of friction. Hope to one day do some felting in the washing machine — much easier!

Other project notes:
These are from memory and might not be quite right.

Body
US7 needles (? not sure of size)
Wool (pencil) roving

Cast on 10, join ITR, knit one round, then KFB (20 stitches), KFB (40 stitches), then knit about 10 rows, then K2TOG on each stitch (20 stitches), K2TOG on each stitch (10 stitches).

Head
KFB every other stitch (30 stitches), knit 5 rows, then K2TOG all stitches (15 stitches), K2TOG all stitches (8 stitches, one extra stitch), K2TOG all stitches (4 stitches). Then weave tail through all stitches and draw closed.

Hat
US5 circular needles
sport weight yarn

Cast on 24 stitches and join ITR.
Row 1: * k1, p1, repeat from * to end
Rows 2-7: same as row 1.

Begin cabling:
Row 8: * P2, K4; repeat from * 3x
Row 9: * P2, K4; repeat from * 3x
Row 10: * P2, C2F, P2, C2B; repeat from * 1x
Row 11: * P2, K4; repeat from * 3x
Row 12: * P2, K4; repeat from * 3x
Row 13: * P2, C2F, P2, C2B; repeat from * 1x
Row 14: * P2, K4; repeat from * 3x
Row 15: * P2, K4; repeat from * 3x
Row 16: * SSK, C2F, P2, C2B; repeat from * 1x
Row 17: * P1, SSK, P2, K2TOG; repeat from * 2x

Rows 18-20+?: All about decreasing gracefully, but cannot remember exact details.

I did the shaping differently each time, haven’t quite settled on a method yet. Experimenting with left-leaning and right-leaning decreases to create a nice pattern stemming from the cabling design.

Create pom-pom or tassel from sock yarn and attach to hat.

Scarf
Scarf was pretty straightforward. Sock yarn, 8 stitches cast onto bamboo US1 DPNS. Do 1.5-2” segment with chosen pattern (cabling, garter stitch, etc.), then decrease to 6 stitches and do garter stitch for XX inches. This section is much narrower to better fit around neck. It might even work better to decrease to 4 stitches for this section. I will have to try that.

Increase to 8 stitches again and do another 1.5-2” section. If you did closer to 1.5”, you will have room for tassels.