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

[hivesofactivity]

Well, I use the term "block" to mean "put it when wet into the shape I would like to see it assume when dry", but I suspect I am doing it wrong... I've only had one felted project go wrong, and that was a little purse that, when it was being felted in the machine, acquired a crease in it, and the next wash just kind of 'set' the crease. I then felted the creased bit by hand (a pain), and when I put it back in the wash I had a bit of hard plastic in the purse to try and keep the crease flat, and then I put another bit of plastic in it when it was drying to keep the crease flat. There's probably a better way to do it, but I've just stumbled along inventing the (offcentre) wheel on this.