Softer than Frodo

I’ve been felting like crazy, feeding Wanda, my trusty l’il Wonder Washer machine, used wool sweaters as fast as I can find them at thrift stores!

Lessons learned: first, a felting fail. I couldn’t resist a soft sweater of gorgeous muted colors that violated the First Felting Rule: thou shalt not waste time and water trying to felt fabric that dost not have at least 50% wool fiber.

My fingers were crossed that the 20% wool plus 9% mohair would add up to enough, but nope. Hey, anyone want a beautiful very clean (as in, I ran Wanda about four times before I gave up) sweater?

Another lesson, that I guess is self-evident and I bet has some fancy scientific and/or metaphysical explanation: sweaters that are super-soft when unfelted, remain super-soft when felted. And itchy scratchy ‘I could never ever wear that’ sweaters? Oh yeah, after felting this 100% Shetland wool sweater, I’m not even sure what I can make out of it. Nothing that comes anywhere near anyone’s skin. Fantastic color though, and sturdy as, well, a Shetland sheep!

But on to my ode to soft. If you don’t know me in person I haven’t bored you with my phone pix of our crazy sweet kitty Frodo, and you have zero idea what the title of this blog article means. Frodey is incredibly soft on the scale of Persian down to scratchy short-hair alley cat …

And I’ve just felted some sweaters that I can’t stop petting as much as I do Frodo. The first photo up top in this article shows four sweaters I scored in one epic trip to my local Thrift Town. The purple argyle and two red sweaters are all 100% cashmere. Because there can be ethical problems with cashmere, I wouldn’t buy a garment or the yarn firsthand.

Most crazy soft, this unassuming short sleeved pullover. You can see how much felting shrunk it. Length always shrinks most, this one went from 21.25 to 14 inches! And width at shoulders: 12.75 to 10 inches.

Second softest, the other red, a touch more designerly with a long ribbed waist, which flared out after felting. Length: 21.75 to 12.75 inches; width at shoulders: 12.5 to 8.25 inches.

And a close third, the purple argyle. Interestingly the different colored fibers felted to slightly different degrees. Sometimes white or very light wool (also black) won’t felt at all, apparently due to a process used to achieve the color. This sweetie went from 22 to 12 inches in length, and 15 to 9.75 inches in width at shoulders.

You didn’t really think I’d let you go without a Frodo pic, did you?

Want to read more about felting fun? Click here to read my article Old Sweater, New Purse!

Old sweater, new purse!

George thought spinning wool could be my knitting journey’s next step; maybe someday, but for now I’ve swerved into the wonderful world of felting! Ever toss a wool sweater into the hot wash by mistake, only to … sob … pull out a tightly compacted knit that’d fit a Barbie doll? That sweater, dear reader, was felted.

There’s lots of ways to felt wool on purpose, I’ve ventured into two of them – wet felting and needle felting – I used both techniques to create a purse. There are also different ways to get the woolen piece that you’re going to felt. You can knit & knit & knit … & knit, and then shrink your handiwork down by felting, but how much faster to upcycle a moth-eaten thrift store sweater?

Here’s a quick trip showing what I did to the beige sweater at the bottom of the photo above, a 100% merino wool cable-knit. First, I whipped out my scissors and cut off one of the sleeves. I gathered my wet felting supplies: a tub of hot water, a bar of olive oil & lavender soap, and two nubbly rubbery oven mitts. Many people wet felt in their washing machines, but I’m nervous about stressing our problematic plumbing. Wet felting works on 3 elements to get the wool fibers to grab onto each other and interlock: hot water, soap, and agitation. The hand method uses good old-fashioned elbow grease. The silicon mitts protect my hands and speed the felting. After maybe a half hour total of stirring and rubbing, I rinsed the sleeve in cold water and decided I was done! The fabric had shrunk a bit, it was thicker and denser, and the cabled stitch definition was quite muted.

Time to turn it into a purse! I cleaned up the rough top edge, which I’ll fold over to close the purse, by needle-felting wool roving around the edge.

Next, I folded the cuff up inside from the bottom to create a pocket, sewed the back of the cuff to the inside of the bag, and then sewed the bottom closed.

Strap time: I knitted a 5-stitch I-cord from Lopi Plötulopi unspun yarn, and wet felted it. Love Lopi yarn colors, but boy is it scratchy! After making a few more purses I realized that braiding yarn is much quicker than knitting an I-cord, felting it erases any stitch definition so unless you really like knitting a really really long boring cord, try braiding! Read more about I-cords here.

For the closure, I sewed a button to the front, and sewed a loop of elastic cord to the inside of the folded over top edge. And voila!

I like how the pattern of the back worked out, with the cables at an angle down to the center.

One sleeve down, I’m plotting what to make with the rest of the sweater even now!

If you’re new to felting, you can find all the information you need from many great books and online tutorials, or look for a class at your local yarn store (LYS). If I had a resource that stood out I’d let you know, but I don’t — I’ve gathered bits of wisdom from more than 20 books & ebooks. I’m far from an expert, but let me know if you have questions, and please let me know about your own adventures with felting!