Crystal's World

Welcome to my world! This is where you can see my crafty projects and probably learn a little about me and my projects!

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Felting Lesson Learned


Some people call it fulling...I still call it felting. The act of putting a wool item in a hot water wash and making it shrink up. Then, rinse in cold water and do it again (if necessary) until you get the desired results! Since I had two of these bags to felt and only one very small mesh laundry bag, I put one in it and left the other one free in the washer. Here they are drying... Can you guess which is which?
OK, I'll tell ya! The blue one was left free in the washer with the blue jeans. Can you see how much more fuzzy it it? It needs a haircut! The purple one was done in the mesh bag. I definitely like the look of the purple one better! I did notice that the stitches are almost invisible on the blue bag, and the purple one you can see some striping where the stitches are! Very interesting study in Felting (ok, Fulling!). By the way, both bags were made with the Brown Sheep Bulky 100% wool yarn using the flat bottom bag pattern (my first blog entry). When they are dry and the buttons are added, I will take another picture of them with the 'un-felted' one. I have to make a big laundry bag to felt any bigger bags I make! Hmmm, imagine that, I happen to have some fine meshy fabric lying around here somewhere.... I'll add that to the project list!

4 Comments:

  • At 10:36 PM, Blogger Crystal said…

    What's with the ads in the comments sections? I've had to delete two of them! Ugh!

     
  • At 7:32 PM, Blogger Crystal said…

    Hi Debbie,
    I got my little mesh bag from the laundry department of a discount department store... where they sell hangers and ironing boards. I believe it was called a lingerie bag. I would get the biggest one you can. I've also made some really big mesh bags with some fabric I had laying around!
    I hope this helps!
    ~Crystal

     
  • At 9:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi! I need Help, could you explain to me the right way to felt an Item in the Washing Machine, so far I've had bad Luck. I made these items (Purses)on the Knifty Knitter, even went to a Class,but all my Items shrink to the Size of a Childs Purse. The Lady from the Store said not to put the Item in the spinning cicle,just to leave it in hot water for 10 Minutes and then take it out.I like the way you do the Flat Bottom Method I even made this but the felting of my Purse was awful.
    Please help me

     
  • At 4:12 PM, Blogger Crystal said…

    Dear Anonymous,
    The nature of felting does cause the bags to shrink... a lot!
    As you can see from some of my pics... the bags are much smaller after felting. Some people say not to put them through the spin cycle... but I ususally do. This helps them to dry faster.
    You have to make the item about 1/3-1/2 times larger than you want it to be at the end. But, as I have learned, different yarns shrink differently. If you have questions, please feel free to e-mail me. I don't check through the comments here very often.
    crystalkini@yahoo.com

     

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