Wednesday 21 October 2009

Felting frustration















PLEASE can anyone help?! I've been trying to felt charity shop jumpers - but they just won't shrink! I'm staying with friends in Leeds who've kindly lent me their washing machine for the purpose - but in spite of tumbling at the hottest temperature and spinning extremely fast - they refuse to do it! We tried the striped merino one - no luck! As you can see, my friend's now wearing it - it's perfect. Grrr! Then it was the extra-large blue lambswool one - surely this one would do it? Nope. If anything - it emerged from the wash even larger! I remember in the past putting my favourite wool top in the machine by mistake. It was ruined and fit for a five year old. Now I actually want the sweaters to go all thick and solid - it's just not happening. FAILED! Is there anything that will work?

2 comments:

Ruth Singer said...

Felting only works on handwash jumpers - probably the ones you had were treated with anti-shrink which makes them machine washable and therefore unfeltable. Instructions in my book Sew It Up (which you should find in all good bookshops, the local library and all big branches of Oxfam in their make do and mend section).
Hope you have better success next time!

Floss said...

I've seen quite a few bloggers going through this trauma! Their combined wisdom seemed to be: use only pure wool; wash it on a really hot wash - boiling in a pan won't work as the tumbling action of the machine PLUS the heat are both needed. Best of luck!