Help! - The Lost Pattern

!!!WANTED!!!

I desperately need the pattern to knit this alien. It's my boyfriend's childhood "teddy" and my sister has demanded one for her bubby. Please help!

One Skein - The Shibori Experiment

It's frustrating that I can't knit up some of the beautiful patterns that I'm lusting after, but I can't give up one week into the stash challenge. Anyway, choosing a pattern for the yarn rather than the yarn for the pattern requires a completely different mindset that is pushing me to be more creative.

I had a beautiful skein of black 100% alpaca but no idea what to do with it, so I googled for a bit and then decided to get on the shibori bandwagon. Cue a day of stocking stitch with my trusty 4's. Yawn. But I kept going because I knew the fun bit was to come.

I couldn't cast off quickly enough! I don't have enough control with my washing machine as there is no way of prising open the door mid-cycle (it doesn't stop the bl**dy thing leaking though), so after I shaped the material with five and two pence pieces secured with elastic bands, I immersed the lot in a vat of boiling water.

The water quickly turned pee-pee yellow and although I have never encountered an alpaca, after a couple of minutes on the stove I had a pretty good idea how one smells.

Three minutes in, I checked how the felting process was getting on. It wasn't.

10 minutes later I checked again, and swooshed my scarf round the pan for good measure.

After 30 minutes I gave up. It hadn't worked.

I achieved the below effect with a hairdryer and my boyfriend's hairspray. I'll never be able to get it wet ...therefore I'll probably never be able to wear it out ...therefore it's a totally unpractical scarf.

Lesson learnt: Knit a sample before you commit to knitting a garment up for felting. Thank heavens it was only a scarf.

As an afterthought. My fellow likes the smell of soggy alpaca.