Here is the post machine knitting class but pre-shibori scarf. My classmate came up with a more fitting color name of "sweet potato". I cast on 40 stitches and knit 6 skeins until it was about 140 inches long. It took about and hour and half and I think the row counter was in the mid 200s when I was finished. I didn't make many mistakes except misjudging how far I could knit the last inches of a skein. Turns out if the yarn fits around the tension knob then it will make it across the row. It seems important to remember to move the weights up about every inch so the edges keep the proper tension. It was fast and easy as promised, but I can see how limiting it is to use just a few gauges that work with machines fixed needle size and only knit in stockinet stitch.

I forgot to take a photo pre-felting, sorry about that. Here's how I shibori-ed my scarf: I tightly wrapped the rubber bands around the marbles but made sure to try and leave enough slack so the marbles wouldn't fall through the knit loops. I wrapped the marbles in an argyle-like pattern 3 across then 2 across repeat to end, I did all the outside marbles on the wrong side and all the inside ones on the right side of the fabric. My classmate's project turned out so overly felted that all the ball shapes were on one side. I wanted to make sure my design worked on both sides incase mine got too felted as well. I placed the marbles about three inches apart across. Hubby helped me with the washing machine management, mostly for support. I get so tweaked every time I do something experimental. We filled the machine on the hot setting with just a touch of detergent. I agitated for about ten minutes then stopped the wash and while wearing rubber gloves fished the scarf out and had a look-see.

Probably half the marbles had fallen out, and maybe ten rubber bands had come off. The felting was stronger in some areas and then not enough in others. I decided to add back a few marbles to some obvious problem areas and then put the scarf back in the hot water hoping to even out the felting. After about 4 more minutes I pulled the scarf out, ran it under cool water and then wrapped it in a towel to absorb some of the water. Hubby helped me take out the rubber bands and marbles. Under the rubber bands retained the most knits or unfelt areas. When a marble fell out, the tip of the ball area felted too. I think the biggest lesson when using this marble method would be to increase the tension of the fabric so the marbles can't fall through the wet loops. Here's the result:

Here's a hippie dippie photo in the late afternoon sunlight to honor the process.