Advice for a grey day

Today started out pretty grey. Well, ugly grey. The snow looking particularly dirty and clumpy, with a flat grey sky. Above is the picture I took after the sky started to brighten up.

It always seem that the days where I feel pretty lousy are the days when I suddenly feel really pressured to achieve things. I mean, really turn things around and sort out the big picture. While at the same time feeling completely incapable of doing so. I generally end up wasting the day fretting.

So my solution was to pick a very small job and finish it in order to give myself a sense of accomplishment (however fleeting). So I picked a bowl I started to crochet with beautiful handspun yarn from Kristyn of Pleasurecraft a mere year ago. I had about 2 inches left on this bowl, yet I set it aside at some point and didn't finish it. I wasn't sure if it was going to work out as it was turning out to be very floppy.

Here's the bowl before felting:

So I finally finished it, and felted it and was very happy with the results! The yarn is helping hold the bowl's shape while it finishes drying but it's much thicker now and isn't too floppy anymore. I love wool felted bowls, everytime I see one I want to make one myself, but after all the years of admiring them this is actually my first one. I love it! Now I want to make more.

The best part is I no longer have this unfinished project sitting around taking up space and saying "why can't you get things finished?" every time I see it. This one was depressing because it was also saying "why did you waste this beautiful yarn making something that is clearly not working out??"

Detail of the lovely texture:

And now it's sunny...

INSTRUCTIONS
This handdyed handspun yarn is the beautiful handiwork of Kristyn from Pleasurecraft.

The yarn is thick-thin handspun that overall is quite bulky. I used a size G crochet hook which made the crochet quite dense and tight. You would do a sample with your yarn and choose a hook that gives you that result - ie. a bit smaller than you would usually use with that yarn. If the yarn isn't bulky enough you can always double it up.

The whole thing is sc (single crochet stitches). This bowl is shaped like a cylinder rather than curving up gradually.

Make a circle as large as you want the base to be (remember it will shrink a bit after felting). Start with 3 ch, join into a loop and start sc into the loop until you have your starting circle. As you sc around the circle add increases here and there so that the circle lies flat.

Once the circle is as large as you want the base of your bowl to be, stop adding increases and continue sc around the circle until your bowl is as tall as you want it to be.

I felted by washing in alternating hot/cold water with lots of soap and agitation. I put it in the dryer until it was mostly dry but then took it out to shape it.

If you try this, I'd love to see your results!