Experiementing with Felting

I am fascinated by felting. There are so many ways the process can be used as well. Typically I make felted sculptures with raw wool. I have been intending to felt some knitted projects. I was unsure of the specifics of the process and how different fibers matte together so I knitted up some patches.

The light gray is a hand spun 100% alpaca I found in a little herb shop here in Galena, The Great Galena Peddlery. The red is a 70% wool/30% mohair blend from Peace Fleece and the dark grey is actually a wool/acrylic blend that I did not expect would felt at all.

I threw them all in the washer with dish soap, a hot wash, and a cold rinse.  Then I put them in the dryer. I did the whole process twice and this is what happened.

The alpaca felted beautifully. It is now a luxuriously soft swatch. I’ll have to figure out what to do with it. The acrylic blend of course did nothing. When you read in books about felting that acrylic doesn’t felt it is true. The red Peace Fleece swatch hardly did anything and washed it an extra time.I think it would felt if I kept washing it down, but three is my limit for using all the water it takes to run it through the washer. I think the swatch would make a good pot holder.

I checked the Peace Fleece website to see if maybe the yarn was treated to be washable, but I couldn’t find anything. It seems to just be one of those yarns that takes a lot of coaxing. I could of course try to wash it down by hand or dry felt it with a felting needle.

I am doing more experimenting in felting . . . Coming soon: Re-purposing a Wool Sweater