Phoenix Bess

Extra It Girl Knits Techniques

Felting Instructions

1. Pick Your Yarn:
Your yarn needs to be mostly animal fibers. Look for blends that are at least 70-80% animal fibers, although some soy/wool blends may contain less wool and still felt well. Stay away from “superwash” wool because it has been treated to prevent felting. Many merinos and sock yarns are “superwash” so the knitted garments will be machine-washable. Any animal fiber will felt, so look for alpaca, mohair, cashmere, angora, camel, buffalo, quiviut, and wool, or any blends of these. The felting projects in this book feature wools and a wool/alpaca blend.

2. Choose Your Method:
Felting is just the process of making the yarn fibers grab onto each other and interlock to become a completely different fiber. You make this happen with two key ingredients: hot water and agitation. You can felt your yarn in a washing machine (top- or front-loader) or by hand. Washing machines make felting a relatively painless process, but hand-felting allows the most control over the process. Let’s take a look at the different methods and how to use each.

Top Loading Washing Machine
Felting in a top-loader is the easiest and quickest way to shrink your knits! Top-loaders have an agitation bar that really beats up the clothes, so you get lots of agitation, and with the addition of a bit of mild soap (the alkalinity helps change the structure of the wool’s fibers) and hot water, you can felt down your knitting to a tight hard fabric in no time. Variables like water temperature, water hardness, and yarn content make felting an inexact science, though. So, put your project in the washing machine (in a zippered lingerie bag if it’s a small project or a long skinny one that’s likely to get twisted around something and pulled out of shape) with some heavy items like jeans (make sure they are old and won’t bleed) and turn the wash cycle to the longest hottest setting. Add a small bit of detergent to the wash. Set a timer for about 10 minutes and turn on the washer. After 10 minutes, stop the washer and pull out your knit to check it for felting. Look for a loss of stitch definition and a matting of the fibers. Throw it back in and let it whirl some more, checking every 5 minutes or so for felting progress. The yarn can go from perfect to microscopic in a flash, so don’t forget to check it frequently. Keep your measuring tape nearby and haul that wet dripping mess out and measure it to catch it just as it reaches the right size.

Front Loading Washing Machine
Ok, this is easier than felting by hand, but it’s not as easy as a top-loader. Your front-loader can be stopped periodically, but only at the end of each washing cycle, so you lose some control over how often you can check for progress. And, the water does not really soak the garments at the beginning the same way it does in a top-loader, so the first run through will be about getting the yarn good and wet (unless you wet it first in the sink with hot water – not a bad idea really). Other than that, you can get a good hard felt with a front-loader by following all the same instructions: add heavy stuff to the wash (stay away from linty things like towels unless you want to have little bits of odd colored fuzz permanently embedded in your elegant felted purse), use the hottest water you can (80-140degrees), and check for progress frequently. Whatever you do, don’t allow the project to go through a spin cycle in a front-loader! Wow! Talk about violent. That’s a good way to pull your knit out-of-shape real fast.

Felting by Hand
This method allows for the most control, but you’ll sure get a workout. Drop your project in a sink, bucket, tub, or any other container with hot water and get the yarn good and wet. Take it out of the water, lay it in the bottom of the tub or sink, on top of something rough (bamboo mat, washboard, towel, etc…) and add a bit of soap and just enough HOT water to keep things squishy. Now rub! Rub it against itself and against the mat, and occasionally dip it into a bowl of very hot water, then back to the mat and the rubbing. Keep the felting hot by adding a bit of hot water as you work, but don’t rinse away the soap. Keep your measuring tape nearby, and check the progress once you see the characteristic matting and hardening.

3. Rinsing
Haul the soapy, dripping mess out of the sink or washer and rinse it in cold water until the water runs clear. Now, squeeze out as much water as you can, taking care to not crease the felt. Lay the felt between two clean towels and press hard on the top towel. Repeat with more clean dry towels until little water remains.

4. Blocking
This step turns your sometimes misshapen mess of felted wool into the beautiful purse or hat it was supposed to be. Place your wet project on a piece of foam board (mat board or cardboard will work, too) and, after pulling all the sides to the right dimensions, pin the sides down so that the pins hold the shape as the project dries. The dry felt will hold the shape after it’s dry, so make sure you pull and push the edges and sides to get just the shape or dimensions desired. With three-dimensional objects (the purses), you’ll need to use a motley assortment of objects to make the right shape. I grab cereal boxes, plastic boxes, or even cut pieces of mat board or foam board to make the sides straight and the bottom corners crisp. Cover all of the non-plastic stuff with plastic grocery bags or they’ll turn to goo overnight from absorbing all the water in the wet felt. Once you’ve got the shape-making stuff in there, or the pins placed, leave the project to dry (which could take days).

To speed drying to several hours, first block with aluminum foil shaped to the right dimensions for the project. Do not block with plastic objects. Turn oven to 350-degrees Fahrenheit to heat up. After it’s hot, turn off heat and place foil blocked project on a clean folded kitchen towel, oven mitt, or foil covered cardboard, then place both project and towel on a foil-covered cookie sheet in center of oven and close door. After about 10 minutes, turn oven to warm, but check project periodically to make sure it’s not getting brownish which would indicate overheating. Also, make sure the project is not touching back, sides, or front of inside of oven. Contact with the hot metal inside the oven can scorch the wool.

Once it’s dry, remove the stuff and it’s ready for embellishing or whatever else you are going to do to it. Remember, felted wool is really a solid fabric, so it can be trimmed without raveling, which is happy news if your purse comes out with one side looking weirdly misshapen or overly long, or your headband is too long.