Thank you for joining me for today’s adventure in the continuing drama of As the Wool Felts.
Lesson 3 – Felting time is unpredictable.
My third lesson learned is that it is difficult to predict exact felting time. Some yarns felt relatively quickly but others take a bit of effort. Here are the times that it took to thoroughly felt my samples.
Welcome back to continuing saga about lessons learned while deliberately shrinking wool.
Lesson 2 – Yarn doesn’t felt evenly.
My second lesson learned from my felting adventure is that yarn doesn’t felt evenly. You probably noticed from the results of the first part of our felting adventure that yarn generally felts more lengthwise than widthwise but again the amount of difference varies from brand to brand. For example, the blue sample had a marked decrease in length (29%) but an almost negligible decrease in width(6 %) while the yellow sample had a more even shrinkage with 36% loss in length and 28% loss in width.
I have been fascinated by felting since I first started to knit. I love the bit of surprise that results when you put your knitting in water. The results can be surprising sometimes. To help you sort out some of the mysticism and magic that is felting, here are a few things I have learned in my experiments with shrinking wool.
Lesson 1 – All wool doesn’t felt the same.
Different fibers, different brands and even different colors of the same brand will felt at different rates. Annoying, confusing, logic-defying but sadly true. To be certain of results, it is advisable to, and yes, I know you are going to hate me for saying this, knit and felt a swatch. This is recommended for every yarn that you work with and wouldn’t hurt for each individual color since dyes used can affect the felting rate.
Lily Alexania
Inspired by the bold hats worn in the Edwardian Era and named for a survivor of the Titanic, this felted hat is ridiculously quick to knit due to the loose gauge and large needles. It practically knits itself. Hat can be customized a variety of ways to make it truly unique.
Please ignore the bits of pollen in my hair and on the hat.
Pattern is suitable for the advanced beginner to intermediate knitter. Techniques include basic stitches, knitting in the round, simple decreases and felting. Pattern includes basic felting instructions but I will be posting detailed tutorials for felting and blocking later this week.
Pattern available as a pdf download through Ravelry.
$5.00
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As a special treat, how about a giveaway. Leave comment to this post and I will draw 9 names at random to receive a discount coupon code for 15% off the purchase of this pattern and one lucky person will receive the pattern for free. If you Like my Facebook page or Follow Me on Twitter or leave a comment about the hat either Facebook or Twitter, you will be entered into the drawing a second time. Just leave a second comment telling me which you have done.
I am beginning to think that I need to pick a different time of year for photos. For some reason, azalea blooming time spells disaster for me. If you remember last year, I managed to severely sprain my ankle while photographing a sock. This year the spring photo shoot also proved to be quite the adventure.
First, there were the bees. Big, giant, threatening bumblebees. Not the sweet little honey bees. Or even the cute, fuzzy, docile bumblebees.
These were get-in-your-face-and-talk-about-yo-mama kind of bees. Ready-for-a-fight gangsta bees. Try as I might, I couldn’t avoid wincing when they dive bombed my hat.
“You think you can hang out in my flowers? I don’t think so!”
“You need to take yo’ human self outa here right now before things get ugly.”
And what would a photo shoot be without a fall. This time I fell flat on my tooshie while trying to get posed in the place Princess Buttercup found to be most artistically pleasing. Did I mention I landed in a container of rainwater? Or the feet in the air look that has SmallFry laughing hysterically? Who knew that photography was so hazardous to your health?
Hat in photos are a preview of a soon-to-be-released pattern. Details next time.
