Felting Fun

My first attempt at felting brought on by the fact that I have a supply of mohair wool that I don't seem to have a use for. I noticed that after sitting around for more years than I care to admit to that it is naturally felting a little. So a little bit of research and it would seem that mohair is going to felt well. After the slippers I made (previous blog) were not too big I needed to make something else. So a hat, I have always wanted a felted hat and they are always quite expensive!

Settled on this wonderful pattern and with 2 strands of my mohair on size 8mm needles it only took about 2 hours to knit. It came out the size of your average bucket, sorry I forgot to photograph it. Then the exciting part. After some research I knew that I wanted to do this process by hand. We have a front loader washing machine and it would seem like a big waste of hot water as well as the fact that you can't keep checking the size of your garment.

 I donned the rubber gloves squirted a little dish washing liquid in and rubbidy-dub-dub!
















It took about 3 sessions of 10 minutes and of course you have to try it on... wet! But you literally stop when it fits... Simple! What a great process!

I wrapped it in a towel and squeezed as much water out as I could, even stood on it to help the process. Then it was time to finalise the shaping. Each time I walked past it I would run my hands around the brim that I wanted to curl up. It was very easy!

I am more than happy with the result..and its so warm... Roll on winter!