Thursday, February 26, 2009

Felting It!

I've completed my first felted item. I knit a multicolored, striped scarf and with baited breath, dropped it in my washing machine and set it on the hot cycle. I was really freaked out about letting it go in there....but took the plunge anyway. (ha ha)

Finished knitting, pre-felting


I liked how the sides curled inward, and the fuzziness. It really does feel like thick felt!




The end results were surprising, but good altogether. I did learn a few things though:


1. Be prepared to clean out your washing machine when finished. The basin of my washer looked like a multicolored yeti had taken a bath!


2. If you are going to felt a knitted project, make sure that you make it bigger and wider than what you want your finished product to be. I was a little shocked at how skinny the scarf got!

3. It will take several runs with the lint roller or a comb to get it to stop shedding so badly.
4. Felting really does take care of all those little "mistakes!" Like the little holes left from dropped stitches, and the fact that the ends weren't even. Yahoo! I might felt EVERYTHING!


So, all told, I'd definitely felt something again! So different...and cool to look at!

1 comment:

MLE said...

Wow, that looks great! I wish I could knit with wool; I've found so many projects that I've wanted to do that I CAN'T because you can only felt animal fibers (and I think alpaca, which I'm not allergic to, doesn't felt very well). I can't wait to see more felted stuff.