Today started out with some errands I wanted to get done before North Carolina’s three-day back-to-school tax holiday.

The stores will be crowded and the lines will be long, and since my shopping did not involve the items on the tax-free list, I decided to get my errands done today and leave the aisles clear for the parents and children who will be shopping from tomorrow until Sunday.

When I returned home from the errands, I turned my attention to making pieces for my 2012 North Carolina State Fair project. I figured that if I continue at yesterday’s pace, I will not have the necessary pieces until sometime in January.

Even then, the project still wouldn’t be done as I would need to piece the project together and add a border, and while today’s progress wasn’t truly impressive, it was progress, and I am now 12 rectangles closer to my goal.

I was happy to make progress on the state fair project, but as I was making rectangles, my mind was elsewhere. Namely on the two potholders for Frank Stella that I began on Tuesday.

With all of the crocheting and weaving in of ends done, the potholders measured about 14″ across:

too big to be useful in the kitchen. My research at the Williams-Sonoma website indicated that the “perfect potholder” would be a 9.25″ square, and I had planned for my potholders to be very near to that size when felted.

Would my planning pay off?

At around 4:30 this afternoon, I finally got started on the felting of the potholders.

Using my Super Wash hand turned table top pressure washer, I got to work, stopping periodically to stir some soup I was making for dinner. Back and forth I went between turning the crank on the Super Wash and attending to whatever chores beckoned to me in the kitchen.

By the time the soup was eaten, the dishwasher loaded, and the sun poised to set, the potholders-to-be measured about 10″ square:

while the potholders had shrunk four inches, my research suggested that with a little more turning, the potholders would shrink even more.

Well after the sun had set, I continued to turn the crank on my Super Wash (you can read more about how to felt with a Super Wash in this blog post), and then at about 9:15, when I pulled the potholder out to check on them, they had finally reached the 9.25″ range.

Using a towel, I wrung them out as best I could, and now they are all done except for the drying.