Does anyone here felt?

[hivesofactivity]

I've been knitting for ages, but I'm a relatively new felter.  Also, my felting is the rather slapdash bung-it-in-the-washing-machine-a-few-times-when-I'm-doing-a-hot-wash variety, which to my utter shock is working out quite well.

At the moment, I am knitting and felting personalised pencil cases for kids at my kidlet's school.  It's a bit of a suprise: a tough little boy I didn't know  spotted me knitting in the playground, approached me and asked me to 'knit him something', I did him a pencil case with his name knitted into it, and word spread....  It's been a good way of using up old bits of stash, and they are so easy to do.  My only problem has been trying to work out if the unlabelled yarn in my stash is all wool or not, so that it will felt properly.

So - any other knitters who felt their finished projects?

Comments

[theraveledskein]

I think what merrin is describing is usually referred to as "shibori" felting - Wikipedia tells me this is a traditional Japanese dyeing technique, but it's definitely used in knitting, too. I've never done it, but my understanding is that you tie objects to your knitting before you felt it to sort of protected the fabric and leave some areas unfelted.