Technique Tutorial: how to felt a knitted or crocheted piece
This tutorial explains how to felt an item that you have knitted or crocheted first. It can also be used to recycle an old wool scarf or sweater, which you can use as is or refashion with your sewing machine.
You will need
- a completed knitted or crocheted project, or an old wool item
- top loading washing machine
- a meshed bag with zipper or drawstring
Fibers that felt: 100% wool (but not Superwash wool); other animal fibers such as: alpaca, mohair, cashmere and llama
The Basics
- Prepare your item: weave in all ends.
- Place in a bag: preferably in a zippered meshed laundry bag.
- Wash: fill your washing machine to the lowest level and select the longest hot water cycle.
- Check periodically: Let agitate to allow the wool to felt. Check after 5 minutes. A fully felted item will not show stitch definition. Continue to wash until you achieve the desired size or felted effect.
- Squeeze out water: Do not allow to proceed to the rinse cycle. Rinse by hand in cold water. Gently squeeze out excess water. Roll in a towel to remove more water.
- Air dry: lay flat to dry or if it’s a bag, pull and shape the bag as desired, then lay flat and stuff with plastic bags or a rectangular object to hold a shape and sit up or hang depending on the bag design.
Notes
- I prefer a meshed bag with a zipper than a pillowcase. Air bubbles can form in the pillowcase causing part of the bag to float on the surface resulting in uneven felting.
- The more friction there is the quicker the wool felts. If you cannot select a low level water setting, you can still felt the bag in more water but it will take a lot longer and you may want to add a few pairs of jeans to increase agitation, but don’t use towels as the lint may embed itself in your felt.
- Different brands will felt differently. Most worsted wool will felt in roughly between five to 30 minutes. Reset the wash cycle before it goes to rinse to felt for longer periods. Test before mixing brands. Not all 100% wool is the same, I have found that I don’t like the texture of some once felted. You may add a small amount of detergent but I have found that this is not necessary and it’s better environmental practice.
- Don’t use the spin and rinse cycle as sometimes this causes problems. Your piece might end up with heavy creases that are hard to smooth out after the fact.
- It can take a couple of days or more to dry a bag. You can direct a fan towards the bag to speed up drying, but this will use more electricity.
- Generally, knit with needles that are a size and a half or two larger than what is recommended by the yarn manufacturer. I have knitted with the recommended needle size and still obtained excellent felting results. Knitting with larger needles will give you more opportunity to play with size.
- Some imperfections in your knitting will disappear once the item is felted, e.g. Twisted stiches, dropped stitches.
Caption: Picture above shows how neatly an edge sewn in mattress/invisible stitch disappears.
- Your item will shrink more lengthwise (see photo below). Lengthwise you can expect shrinkage to almost half the size and widthwise about ¼ shrinkage.
- Knit a swatch containing your chosen colours to see how differently they will felt. Darker colours generally felt faster.
- Consider how itchy the felt will be and if its appropriate for your application.
- Experiment by knitting or crocheting in some non-felting fibers.
- Consider rinsing your wool item in Eucalan wool wash. It does not require further rinsing, it is environmentally friendly, deters wool-eating pests, and if lavender is present, it is also a moth repellent.
Before and After
About the maker: Laura has worked with felt for two years. She has always been involved in the arts, first through photography, and then web design. She now designs her own hand-knitted and machine-knitted bags which she then felts. She is self-taught. See her work at her blog.
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September 6th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Felting is very easy, especially if you dont want to felt things. I unfortunately felted very nice sweaters which my mother in law knitted for my little girl.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:58 am
While the net bag may work better, the pillow case will keep the fuzz in the pillow case and not in your washer mechanisms. Anyone who has had to have a tech out to fix their washer because the drum has siezed will tell you use the pillow case! Otherwise AWESOME directions!!
September 8th, 2007 at 9:35 am
When I felt my thrifted sweaters I let them go through the rinse cycle and then dry them in a hot dryer. It doesn’t seem to hurt them at all. I have used wool content as low as 80% with great success. Also, I have learned that the bulkier wools do not felt well.
September 9th, 2007 at 3:37 am
Thank you for your comments. You’re right Lisa, a pillow case will contain fibers and protect your washer. I wonder though if there’s anyone else who is doing this on a continuous basis and uses a mesh bag for consistent results. I have figured that repairs will have to be part of my expenses.
I have to admit I haven’t tested drying my items in a dryer. I think again, it’s because I need consistent results and I try to achieve a felted but still soft felt. But I will test it as it will be a time saver in the winter. Also, I work quite a bit with bulky wools, and felted them successfully. It does take longer though. Try Alafoss Lopi.
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:54 am
[...] up regularly features tutorials or posts links to tutorials. Recently Laura’s tutorial on how to felt a knitted or crocheted piece caught my eye. My only comment would be that I would use a pillow case rather than a net bag [...]