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 Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:46 pm
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Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 2:02 pm
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Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:11 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:54 am
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:36 pm
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Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 6:05 pm
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Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 5:23 pm
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 9:08 am
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Ok... here's what I can tell, hope some of this helps:
(I feel like a dictionary now >.<)
Felting
Trivia for the day: if your knitting, crocheting or working with a fabric that had been woven in any way the process is technically called fulling. Felting is actually making clumps of loose fibers stick together (like sheets of felt you used as a kid)
~*~
Either way, it is the same process. Felting needs 2 things to work:
1. heat
2. agitation
The agitation causes the little fiber pieces that make up the yarn to "fuzz out" and then wrap around one another and stick together. That is why needle felting (Taking a clump of loose wool and poking it lots and lots of times with a rough needle until it forms a stiff ball) works. On a side note, if you like textile crafts, needle felting is inexpensive and very fun.
The heat causes the fibers to pull more closely together. So with both you get a matted, shrinking, sturdy fabric.
Also: sheep don't felt in the rain because it isn't water that makes the felting, it's the heat and agitation. I suppose if you shook a sheep while it was raining boiling water, then they would felt... and everyone involved would probably be unhappy.
~*~
Ok, then how do you get it to work?
the answer is there are several ways.
The more delicate the project, the more time it will take to felt because you'll want to be careful.
Delicates are best done by filling a bucket (or bathtub) of hot water, putting the object in and getting a stick or wooden spoon, and churning the knitwear and water as if you were beating eggs or churning butter. That way you can take the object out every few minutes and check, stopping when it's felted enough.
For less delicate things (probably slippers) your wasing machine should work fine. Make sure it's on hot, and that you're on a spin cycle - something that will get lots of movement (again if its delicate you can do less spin for slower felting)
Now, if it really need to be taught a lesson, you can throw the object to be felted into the dryer after it has been washed. The dryer also felts beautifully, but you'll want to stop and check it every few minutes because it also felts very quickly, and over felted projects make knitters unhappy.
~*~
What felts? animal fibers, specifically ones that are sheared.
Wool works the best in my experience, but alpaca, quivut, cashmere and blends of any of these felt very well.
What doesn't felt?
Animal fibers: silk
Vegetable fibers: cotton, linen, bamboo, soysilk, cornsilk ect.
ManMade Fibers: acrylic, nylon
(Manmade fibers will not felt, but they may melt! caerful with deilcate ribbon yarns!)
Also things with 50% wool or higher mixed with a non-felting fiber will felt, through not as tightly as pure wool or wool mixed with other felting fibers.
In my experience unplyed yarn (yarn with only one strand) felts slightly better than plyed (Yarn with 2,4,6 or what have you little strands spun together. Red Heart Super Save is 4 ply yarn if you want to check)
Unplyed favorites for felting: Noro Kureyon, Brown sheep Lamb's Pride and Lamb's Pride Bulky, Renyolds Lite Lopi
~*~*~
Hope this helps someone!
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 1:46 pm
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 7:26 pm
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Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 7:42 pm
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Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 11:59 am
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Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:18 pm
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Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:50 pm
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