After re-discovering my passion for all things knitted, I picked up the first editition of a new magazine in November last year called 'Let's Knit' it was packed with ideas and tips along with all the funky wools and needles that were now available, did you know you can even get leopard print knitting needles! Even needles that glow in the dark so that you can knit at the cinema. Knitting really has moved on since I last knitted.
Another great discovery is felting, I had never heard of it before and neither had anyone else I know. I read about it in my magazine and thought I'd give it ago. Rather than risk felting on my own knitting I thought I'd try it first on some old wool jumpers I picked up from the charity shop. For those of you that don't know felting is the art of shrinking your knitting! If you are anything like me you have probably been felting for years and didn't know it! The idea is that when pure wool is washed at high tempratures it shrinks and turns into a sort of matted felt that is very duarble and therefore the ideal medium for making bags for example. There are other types of felting, needle felting for instance but I haven't really looked into that. Anyway I picked up the most hideous double breasted green mohair cardigan which was lined with green lining material and had 4 gold buttons (yuck). It was beautifully knitted but a hideous pattern none the less. The other jumper I picked up was a red shetland fairisle jumper. I popped them both into the washing machine with a trainer (which is to help the shrinking and flinging about in the washing machine) and stuck it on to a 60 degree wash. Sure enough they came out of the washing machine a fraction of the size they were before and the mohair particulary had become a thick matted felt. I should mention that I had taken out the lining before the wash and seperated the sleeves from the body. I decided to make a patchwork knitting bag. The lining was a bonus as I used this to line the bag. I bought a cheap wicker bag whilst I was in the charity shop for £1 and used the handles from this for my new bag. I was really pleased with the result and here is a picture.
In this months 'Lets Knit' they had a beautiful Noni bag to felt and knit. Noni makes the most amazing bags you can imagine and I had been longing to have a go at one. So this was my next project. It was really quick to knit and the great thing was it was knitted on dpn's so there was no sewing up to do! Well, not strictly true as I had to sew on all the little bobbles here is the photo in the magazine.
Doesn't it look cute! The wool suggested was cascade 220 which I bought from Pavi yarns on line. The problem with felting is that it is expensive as you need pure wool in order for it to felt. So I ordered about 8 balls which cost £40! Whilst I was waiting for my wool to arrive whilst scouring the local charity shop I found a whole bag full of ruby red pure new wool which they were selling at 30 pence a ball! So I bought about 20 of these. They also had a load of tapestry skeins of wool in all different colours which were 6 for £1 so I bought all those as well. So I now had enough wool to knit my little bag. The bag knitted up in one evening, it took another evening to knit all the little balls. Here is a picture of what it looked at before felting and next to it the finished article.
I was quite pleased with how it turned out and it was a good thing to try for a first attempt, but the bag is so small! You couldn't even fit a mobile phone in it. Anyway the next day my cascade wool arrived. It looked so beautiful all twisted up in skeins and all those goregeous colours, now all I had to do was find something to knit with it! Luckily there are so many free patterns that are on the internet I found a great tote bag by Maia Discoe http://maiaspins.typepad.com/Patterns/BigBagPattern.pdf. The pattern was really easy to follow and the finished bag looked huge! I wanted to add some flowers to the bag just to make it look a bit special and I came across this great pattern for 'Fabulous Felted Flowers' http://www.michaels.com/art/online/projectsheet?pid=e03860. I felted the bag and the flower petals, seperating them and keeping them safe in a laundry bag before putting them in the washing machine, the same method as before with a trainer, dryer balls would have been better but I couldn't fine any in my local shops. The petals looked a bit 'iffy' when they came out they were all matted together and I had to pry them apart, but luckily they dried well and were fine. The finished product was fantastic, I am so pleased with my bag, it looks beautiful althogh I say so myself! Well it should do I suppose for the amount of money it cost. I didn't take a picture of the bag before it was felted but here are some of the finished product.
Recent Comments