Ivy’s Vine

Felting for the apartment dweller

June 23rd, 2009

Felting is weird.  You make something way too big, then shrink it down to a form.   This work with almost all animal fibers–wool being the easiest to felt.  Silk doesn’t felt at all, and the camelid fibers (alpaca, llama, camel) felt slower than wool.  To my knowledge qiviut doesn’t felt, but I’m not about to test that.

To felt an item, all you really need it hot water and agitation.  This is why you can scrub a fleece to your heart’s content in ice water and not felt it, but when you put it in hot water to break up the grease, you can’t move it around much at all.  Felting can also happen through shocking the fiber–plunging it first in hot water, then in cold.  This is something dyers need to keep in mind when taking the skein out of the near boiling dye pot and rinsing out the residual dye.

Felting the swatch gives you an approximate idea of how the final project will felt.  It’s not an exact science. Water temperature can vary.  The amount of agitation can vary.

Felting should be done with a top loading machine, and the item being felted should be checked regularly to see how it’s doing.  This isn’t possible for an apartment dweller in NYC.  We don’t have a washing machine.  We use a laundry service, and if I wanted to do this at a laundromat I’d still have my choice of a small front loader machine, a medium front loader machine or a large front loader machine.  Front loaders don’t open midway through to let you check the item.  So I send out the item and hope for the best.  It’s a game of chance.  I had no idea how it would come out, and no way to reverse the process.   I could felt it further, but if it felted too much, I couldn’t undo that.  Yes, I know I can felt it in my kitchen sink, but honestly, I don’t have the patience to swirl a hat in hot water for half an hour.

This week, two felting projects fell into my lap.  This beret is a stash buster project–more of the yarn from the swapping season. It was knit, then felted.

This purse was crocheted and then felted.

I sewed the button on after the felting.  This is the first of the Annie’s Hook and Needle Club projects.

One advantage of felted projects is that, after they are completely felted–if they are to be completely felted–they are machine washable.  There is only so far wool can shrink.  The hat is felted as far as possible.  It has the warmth of a good wool.  It’s waterproof.  It’s safe to put in the machine.

Another advantage of felting is that it locks down the fibers.  The yarn used in the bag had a lot of long, stiff fibers poking out.  Clearly it was from a long staple sheep, or a mix of long staple breeds.  It was not comfortable next to the skin–draped over an exposed shoulder for example.  Felting pins those fibers down, so they don’t scratch or itch anymore.  Now it’s comfortable to wear.  It could felt a little more, but I’m not going to do that.  I like it as it is.

Felting gives an item like a bag stability and strength.  There is very little stretch left in that bag, and that’s as it should be.  The hat holds its shape as a beret should.

I generally don’t seek out felting projects.  I like stitch definition.  But, like blocking lace, it’s an interesting sort of knitting magic.

Entry Filed under: Crochet, Knitting