Ever since Interweave Knits ran an article in Fall 05 about Shibori felting, I’ve been totally engrossed in the idea, and practise. If I can get a little shibori into a piece, I will. Shibori work covers a range of techniques, but essentially brings great texture and movement to a piece of knitted fabric. The knit can be very fine and floaty, or thick and hearty, and variations are only limited to your imagination. A quick google search will bring up numerous links, but interestingly, not many blogs with finished product on them, and even flickr doesn’t bring much joy, which has surprised me because it’s such a great idea :: Fusion Knitting has a great bag, and Fiberarts have a lovely article but finding much more than that on the web is pretty hard. I’ve had a lot of fun creating bobbles, which are deceptively simple and quick to achieve and I thought I’d share my technique.
I like to use a good thick pure wool, with some give (ie, not too tight a ply). I’ve had excellent success with handpaintedyarn in a thick/thin slub wool which adds loads of texture. Although results will be just as great with an ordinary wool. Ensure though, that the wool is not superwash, as this will not felt as well, if at all. Decide on your size of end product, do a test knit piece for gauge, and knit up your piece about twice as large as you intend the final piece to be. I tend to use a larger needle than I would normally use for the type of wool – a loose knit will felt in close anyway, but it all depends how tight you want your felted piece to be. Knit your piece in stocking stitch, cast off, and give it a light press. Here comes the fun part.
Cut up a whole heap of small squares of cling film (plastic food wrap) – about 10cm x 10cm pieces. Grab a whole bunch of rubber bands, and some small pebbles or small beads. I used beads in this example. Wrap the knit fabric over the beads, cover with plastic wrap on the right side, and tie in place with a rubber band. Whatever is covered in plastic wrap will not felt. Keep going with the beads in whatever pattern you have figured out. Leave a suitable gap at the edges to allow for the fabric to shrink – say about 2-3cm would be the minimum I would leave. Next, throw it in an old pillowcase and close it, and add that to a washing machine with some old sneakers, tennis balls, and perhaps an old towel. This provides agitation, which will felt, or ‘full’, the fabric. Add a small amount of wool wash (very small amount), and set the machine on the highest temp setting. Check the felting progress every 10 minutes until it has felted your desired amount. This piece took 25 minutes.
When the item has felted to the desired amount, remove and dry. Once dry, remove the plastic wrap and beads, and you now have a lovely bobbled piece of shibori felt!
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