Hap Blanket and a Felting Fail

My husband commissioned me to make a Hap Blanket (my rav link) for our (well, more his, but I know them, and they're great) friends that are having a baby in February. I grabbed some Berroco Comfort from Knitty City and cast on, ending up with a lovely little (machine washable) gift.

Pattern: Hap Blanket by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Berroco Comfort in Breezeway and Tidepool
Needle: US 11 (8mm)

I also attempted to make some of the Children's Felt Clogs for my daughter, which was a total fail. As you can see in this next picture, they felted with one foot opening far larger than the other, and one foot far larger than the other:

We also attempted to felt this by hand, having no washing machine handy in our apartment. FAIL. It took hours just to get a little felt going, despite adding boiling water, felting it with rubber gloves, abrading it, putting it in cold baths, etc. And yes, this is a very feltable yarn. I checked ahead of time.

So I sent it off with our laundry to be done, hoping that it would felt more there. NOPE.

Here they are on Georgia's feet. Far too large and oddly misshapen.

Maybe I should not do felty things from now on, given the washing machine/control issue I've got at home.

And I started a Cria by Ysolda, from her new book, Little Red in the City. The sweater is simple, but has amazingly cool construction, and I'm definitely learning a lot from it (like how to knit set-in sleeves in the round). I've also had to rip back a few times because I simply wasn't paying attention to the pattern. Oops. Might also be a function of having been sick for a while and attempting to knit things that actually require my attention.

I'm using Classic Elite Fresco for this sweater, and it feels really lovely. Unfortunately, the sweater knits up on size 4 needles and it feels like it's taking forever.

Additionally, the steeking on Georgia's sweater was quite successful, however, one of the button bands really wasn't. I think I'm going to have to rip it out and do it again (which will now make either the third or fourth time I've had to rip out that SAME BUTTON BAND), and I decided not to put a zipper in, due to the disaster of Bruce's Brigade sweater, which I suppose I should write about as well.

Next post, I suppose, will be the two failed sweaters of this winter. Sigh.