January 4
Try This – Wet Felting
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I’ve been wanting to play with this…wet felting. Felting is the process of matting and compressing fibers to create a dense cloth. Wet felting cleans and felts the fibers at the same time.Â
Purchase a few sweaters that are made of 100% wool.  Throw them in the washing machine (hot water wash/cold water rinse) with a little laundry detergent and a clean towel. The towel helps agitate the sweaters. Some sweaters will release alot of fibers, so you may want to attach a lint collector to the drain hose of your washer or place the sweaters in a pillowcase, secure the top and wash them that way. Once the wash cycle is complete, you can (1) dry them flat on a towel, (2) wash them again to felt them more, (3) put them in the dryer to felt them even more.
I placed pins at the edges of the sweater pictured below to show the amount of shrinkage. You can see the difference in one washing.
Sweater Before Washing
Sweater After One Washing
You know the sweater is felted if you can’t see the texture of the knitted stitches. In the picture below, the yellow sweater on the left is not completely felted; the grey sweater on the right is felted. I ran most of my sweaters through the wash and dry cycle three to four times before I got the result I wanted.
Join me this month as I do projects with these felted sweaters. I would love to hear your ideas for projects and any experience you have with felting.
Daily Inspiration
 
The poetry of the earth is never dead.Â
John Keats
these were NEW sweaters you shrank? they weren’t too expensive i hope, though pure new wool can’t be too cheap either! The Other Half would have a fit ;p
Great question! They all came from a thrift store. I’ll make sure I mention this next week.
Can you felt cats too? HEE HEE… HH says thanks for the tip. She never really understood felting. Good blog post.
pawhugs, Max
I can’t wait to see what you come up with from this project. This gives a whole new “useful” meaning to wool sweaters I have accidently shrunk! Now I know where this felting comes from. Thanks!
I’ve always been curious about felting, but I thought you had to be able to knit to do it! Since you asked, I’m going to leave two links! http://www.dogartportraits.com/greyhound.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrielefelt/5526905342/
Bunny said she’d be happy to pose for you if you need a model! 😉
These links are amazing and adorable!
Ooooooh, we has heard of dis teknikue but has nevers known anybuddy to has done it befores…other than da magazines. Of course, we can’t afford 100% wool…not even from da thrift stores…hehehehe! I lives a sad life.
Puddles
Love the photos of your hounds. Be interesting to see what you make with the felted sweaters. I ve used felted blankets and embroidered on them, nice effect.
Interseting!
Dachshund Nola
I have seen really cool handbags made out of felted sweaters. I have always wanted to try it!
Kristin (Pip’s mm)