27 November 2009

Felting!

I have finally, finally finished a long-promised pair of slippers for bda, and learned to felt in the process! One of my knitters, upon hearing that I had pay machines in the building, advised that this was a project I probably wanted to do at my parents' house. So, I brought my supplies with me, and got to knitting once I put the turkey in the oven. And not a moment too soon...

leftover yarn

Good thing bda's feet aren't a size or two bigger! But I finished them, stitched them up, then had him try them on for size.

slippers, pre-felting

I thought about just stopping there, so he would have room to grow into them, but the felting bug got the better of me.

I'm glad I took Amy's advice and felted at the house. It ended up taking nearly 30 minutes in the hot water for the slippers to get their felt on, and I reset the washer's agitation cycle twice.

Post-felting, I stuck a pair of shoes in there to block them, then had people try them on for size.

I don't think these are my size.

They weren't quite the right size for Patrick, but they were a pretty close fit for bda.

majestic slippers

Overall, the felting process was pretty easy, and went pretty smoothly. I ended up turning the slippers inside out, because I thought the shape was a little smoother, and the felt a little less fuzzy. I see some errors in the shape caused by errors in the execution (I started the decreases on one side too soon, so there's a bulge at the top of one of them.) But bda seems pleased enough with his new foot covers, so we'll call this a successfully completed project!

slippers!

2 comments:

Kitten said...

FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC! You're my hero. I don't have the guts to felt because I'm always terrified I'll overfelt.

Seriously, they look great. What now? Finishing your scarf?

Helen said...

Ha! It would be nice to finish my scarf before winter ended, wouldn't it? I've been thinking about what you said about the featherweight cardi, though, and thinking that might be small enough to pack. Wouldn't it be great to get in a few hours of chatting and winding laceweight yarn before you leave for Boston? ;)

I made bda try on wet, soapy slippers to make sure I didn't overfelt them. One of them could probably even stand to get a little more felted, but c'est la vie!