Fear of Felting and more FOs

As you know, I've completed all of the knitting on the French Market Bag. I've also completed the knitting on the Fuzzy Feet, AND a mini bag with the left over yarn from the French Market Bag. Now I'm afraid to felt them. Here are the items pre-felted.



I think I did a pretty good job on them, and am nervous about the change. Also, I don't have a washer at home, so how can I possibly control the time the item will agitate. Does this mean I'm going to have to pop in my buck twenty five and then hold a wet item in my hands until the rinse cycle is over? There has got to be a better way...any suggestions?

The MaryElla process has already begun to go awry. I learned last night that all seed beads are NOT created equal. I bought the seed beads that were recommended for the Odessa. They are 6/0 beads and the store I go to calls them seed beads. I think in the rest of the world seed beads are 11/0. Who knows? After a bit of research I found a random blog on the net of a woman who did it (the MaryElla) for the Knitting Olympics and she used 11/0, so that's what I'm going to exchange my 6/0 seed beads for...hopefully. I may have to give up on this and go for the Eve piece in not so shiny yarn, although this girl can carry it off.

Let's see, what else? Other finished objects. I completed my multidirectional scarf. The end was funky and I did it three times before I gave up on it. I'm getting pretty good at fixing my errors and picking up stitches that I've ripped back. What is tinking? So, here's the multidirectional scarf.
I'm happy with the result. I love the yarn. I was going to block it, but I can’t be bothered, it’s a scarf and after five minutes the itchy feeling went away.


And last, but certainly not least, Royal Mail. Daniella introduced me to Cucumberpatch, a UK yarn seller with amazing prices. I've linked to them on the right there, right underneath the link to Nic's amazing handmade needle and other stuff website. Daniella told me about the Colinette Point 5 I've been coveting. It costs over $20/hank here, but this site has it for £5.70, which is about $11.00/hank, and the shipping and handling is £2.50 = $5.00. So, I ordered not the Colinette, but Addi Turbos. They were £3.75. I got four Addi Turbo needles, tiny sizes, for $31.20 delivered! How can you beat that? I saw them at local yarn shops for between $11.50 & $15.75 EACH! I figure I'll slowly build a complete set of them over time. Here is my picture trail:




Included was a hand written note from Daniel explaining that one of the sizes was currently out of stock and he would ship it as soon as it came in, and how can you not love the label that says Happy Knitting? More Royal Mail for me! I want to hurry up and order the Colinette so he can ship it all together, but I think I've blown my yarn budget for the month on the stuff for the MaryElla...wish me luck with that!