♥ Rachel's Knitting Corner ♥

First Time Felting For Me!

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Felting has always been one of those things that I have always wanted to give a try. Just recently I saw something that caught my eye on Ravelry. A couple of people have made felted coasters out of the free knitted star coaster pattern from knittingonthenet.com. You can check them out here and here. Anywho, the last time we were out shopping Hubby took me to Michael's to find some real wool so I could give this felting thing a go! Found some really nice colour combos so that made me happy and I went home and casted on the star coaster pattern. I found out real fast that I didn't like the method of picking up stitches along the side of my star after every wedge so I ripped it out and went looking for some other kind of knitted star that I could use. The first star shape that came to mind was Dione's great starfish cloth! I figured after the felting that my finished creation was going to shrink a whole bunch anyway so I thought why not do up a dishcloth? So there I went again...casted on the required 15 stitches and went to work. What a wonderful pattern to follow...the only change I made was I didn't do the yarn overs as I didn't know how the holes would look when felted so I just knit in the front and back of the stitch before the yarn over as not to make a hole. Here is my finished starfish knit with Patons Classic Wool/Rosewood.

Isn't it pretty? All those beautiful colours together? I was extremely happy with the way it knit up. So now I had the shape I wanted and it was time to figure out what method for felting I would use. I was reluctant to throw it in the washer as I didn't want to just have this one little bitty thing to throw in there and also I didn't want to throw anything else in with it being scared of the colours mixing in the hot water. So I found these great instructions on knittingabout.com for hand felting. I threw my star in a sink of really hot water with a tad bit of dishwashing soap and I swished away with it in there. It didn't take long at all for it to shrink and start getting all fuzzy...so I just kept doing that until I thought it looked good and then I rinsed it in cold water and lay out to fully dry. Here is my finished felted starfish.

As you can see it shrunk quite a bit...it's still a bit big to be considered a coaster but I am more than happy with the way it turned out no matter what it gets used for. Now I'm trying to figure out what else I could felt. What a neat thing to do with wool! There are so many things to try...bags, bowls, slippers, flowers, vases...the possiblities really are endless!