A Bluestocking Knits

Almond kringle from O&H Bakery, via Trader Joe's.  Thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  There was a pumpkin version just before Thanksgiving, our first taste of this delightful stuff.  Now I find that you can order it online, singly or by the case, in a wide variety of mouth-watering flavors.

But I've not just been eating, I've also been felting — found an old skein of Super Yarn Mart wool in a bag somewhere, was just about to toss it in the compost when I thought, "No, I'll experiment with another pincushion!"  I knitted up two 6×6-inch squares in garter stitch, sewed them together with an overcast stitch to leave about a half-inch flange around the edges, and filled it with the rest of the skein, chopped up into 1-inch or so lengths.  (This was actually not as difficult as I'd expected, simply hacking the skein with a pair of very sharp sewing scissors.)  I left the flange because I did't want the pincushion to be round.  After it was all sewed up, I tossed it into the laundry with a load of rags, and then the tumble-dryer, I think four or five times over the next few weeks.

It isn't quite as hard as I'd like, but it seems so convenient to make it with just one skein of wool that I'm not terribly disappointed — it's still pretty firm, anyway, sort of very-ripe-avocado.  It's a good size for a pincushion, big but not too big, about 4 inches "square" and 2 inches high.  The flange has completely disappeared into the body of the pincushion — I was hoping for a little more edge around it, so I might try a deeper one next time.