Oven Mitt, Totoro

Saturday I cleaned a few boxes of things out of the sewing room, so I rewarded myself by making an oven mitt. I cloned the black veggie print one. I traced around it with a 1/2" seam allowance. I used the InsulBright batting, plus a layer of cotton batting sandwiched between two layers of quilting cotton.

It was not easy to sew together. I kept getting skipped stitches, so I switched from a quilting needle to a metallic, which was worse (I guess metallic needles are meant for metallic thread, but I was thinking it might help get through the mylar layer in the batting.). Then I used a sharp or a microtex (?) and it was a little better.

Totoro


I've got a nasty cold, and haven't been good for much, so Sunday I camped out in front of the fireplace and started knitting the Totoro while I watched Ken Burns' Civil War documentary on PBS.

I can see that I'm in for all sorts of folly on this. I have NEVER made a felted project that I liked. I decided to go ahead and stuff this guy before I felted him because I'm knitting him in the round and don't want a seam. This is probably going to be a big mistake. Of course, I didn't knit a swatch to felt, so I have no idea how full to stuff him. I'm almost out of yarn, but I think I can get ears and a tail knitted on. Can't decide whether to make legs and arms.


The cat's in the bag. I swear, one of these days I'll find him dead in a bag. I don't think he's smart enough to claw his way out if he got trapped. I've been wondering why I keep finding bits of white fluff all over the house. . .