Felting

I love yarn!  The colours, the textures, the different fibers.  But of late my fascination has been with wools, and any other yarns that I can felt.  This first yarn below, the Rio De La Plata is actually an $18 wool that I found in a bargain bin for 75% off!  The fact that it's hand spun and comes from Uruguay makes it just a bit more interesting to me.  Not sure yet what I'll be making with it, but I have a few ideas floating around.



The yarn below is called 'Fisherman's Yarn' from Lion Brand.  I bought these at Micheals as they have a very decent selection of yarns. 

A while ago I saw some felted baskets in a magazine and thought I'd give it a whirl.  This one now sits on my work table and comes in very handy for holding all my little nick-knacks.

This hat is made with a combination of Fisherman's Yarn and a Peruvian wool that I got at the Chilliwack Wool shop.  It was huge before I felted it.  It was way to big for my head.  Now that it's done it fits a kid of about 10-12 years old.  I added a band along the inside edge because I don't know about you, but I think having wool sitting against my forehead for any period of time could get a bit itchy.

Felting is a whole lot of fun, but also comes with a bit of a learning curve.  If you're like me, it's do first, learn from your mistakes later.  I read an article on felting and figured, 'Hey, that's simple enough, I can do that too!'   Ha!  I don't know about you, but I'm rather impatient, so halfway through the first wash cycle I figured I'd go have a look to see how things were coming along.  Well, to my shock, not only was the piece not felting, instead of shrinking it was stretching. AAHHH!  I was about to throw in the towel but figured, just toss it back in, nothing to lose now.  After the load was rinsed and spun I pulled out my project again and Voila! it was well on it's way to being a nicely felted piece. 

Just a few pointers if you're going to give felting a whirl.

1. Use very hot water, and wash with similar colours as some yarns release a fair amount of fibers.

2. Most pieces will stretch (sometimes a lot) before they start to shrink and felt.

3. Don't be to gentle on your project.  I found that things felt the best when you let the wash machine beat the tar out of it.

4. Be patient.  If your project is not felted enough, throw it into another load of laundry.

5. Although it is best not to throw your project in the dryer because it might warp it and make it impossible to shape, I do occasionally toss it in for a few minutes just to get a wee bit of the moisture out.

6. Be even more patient.  It could take up to 2 days for a felted piece like a hat or a purse to dry.

Most important...Have Fun!

Hope you all have a great weekend!