Details

Requirements:
A top-loading washing machine, rubber gloves, a pillow protector, about 1/4 cup baking soda (no need to measure exactly), a tablespoon or so of wool wash, a timer, a towel, a basin full of cold water, a project to felt, and about an hour from start to finish. If absolutely necessary, you can leave a project before it is completely felted and resume the process later.

Top tips for felting:
> Choose yarn carefully: avoid machine washable or superwash wool and beware dyes that bleed.
> Knit and felt a swatch.
> Use a pillow protector to preserve your project and your machine.
> Use a timer and check your project regularly.

Other fibres:
Some other yarns readily available in Australia that are known to felt include Panda Woolbale and Carnival pure wool 8 ply, Holiday 8 ply, Heirloom Heatherwood, and Heirloom Aristocrat (50% wool, 50% mohair).

Further reading:
Felted Knits, Beverly Galeskas, Interweave Press Loveland CO, 2003

Fulling Around With Felting: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Felted Garments from Handknitting, Maddy Cranley, Penguin Lane Press, Montreal, 1996

Knit One, Felt Too, Kathleen Taylor, Storey Publishing, 2003

Get the feel for felt

Ingrid Summers

Download PDF (76 kb)

Before you felt, do your research. Many factors can affect felting: yarn fibre, colour, and washability, and type of washing machine used all play a part.

All animal fibres (eg wool, mohair, alpaca) generally felt well, and any blend that contains at least 75% wool or other animal fibre also should felt well. Note that any yarn labelled machine washable or superwash won't felt because it has been treated to prevent it. Light-coloured yarns also might not work due to chemical bleaching whereas brightly coloured yarns can bleed. Projects knitted in stocking stitch usually shrink more in height (rows) than in width (stitches), while garter stitch felts fairly equally in height and width. Different makes and models of washing machines also felt differently. Front loaders shouldn’t be used for felting as they can’t be opened while washing.

Now that you know the pitfalls, rest assured there is a simple way to avoid them: knit and felt a swatch. That one simple step will tell you what you need to know.

Ready to go

After making sure that your project is well seamed, zip it into the pillow protector. This minimises the amount of fluff that ends up loose in your washing machine and can prevent costly appliance repairs.

Using the lowest water level and the highest temperature on a normal wash cycle, start the machine. When it's full, add the baking soda and wool wash. Put on the gloves and submerge your project in the water. The gloves protect your hands from the hot water while the baking powder helps with agitation, which is necessary for felting. Some felters recommend throwing a towel or pair of old jeans into the machine, but lint from the towel or jeans can end up permanently felted into your project.

Set the timer for five minutes. When it goes off, check your project. Continue checking it every five minutes until it has felted to your satisfaction or to the desired size.

If you find that it is pulling out of shape, stretch it gently back into shape. If it is sticking together in unexpected places, gently tease the errant fibres apart. Squeeze the excess water out of your project while it's still in the pillow protector before each check—this helps prevent it from stretching due to the weight of the water.

Resist the temptation to leave your project for more than five minutes at a time. It is not possible to unfelt an object, although it can be stretched a bit and blocked while wet.

If the washer reaches the end of the wash cycle before the felting process is complete, reset it and begin the cycle again without removing your project or letting the water drain. When the project is almost sufficiently felted, fill a basin with cold water. Dunk the finished project in the basin to rinse it and to halt felting. Squeeze the excess water out of it without twisting, wrap it in a towel and squeeze it again to remove a bit more water. Do not put a felted item through the washing machine’s spin cycle because it could create permanent creases in the finished product.

Pull the project into shape and lay it out to dry. You may want to stuff a bag with plastic bags to hold its shape as it dries. A hat can be blocked on a small bowl (unless you have a big head, in which case, use a large bowl).

Lastly, avoid the other potentially nasty byproduct of felting and remember to do a lint check on the inside of your washing machine before your next load of wash!