KroshayKel: First Completed Felting Project

Ok, so have you ever put a sweater made of 100% into the washer and it comes out about 1/4th the size it had originally been? Not to mention it is all fuzzy and, well, felt-like? THAT is what "felting" is. There are a lot of crochet (and knit) projects where you do this INTENTIONALLY, by making an item bigger than it needs to be and then throwing it into the washing machine (with very HOT water) and then squeezing the excess water out and laying flat to dry. I've always wanted to try this technique but was worried I wouldn't do it right.

We went to our local AC Moore store last Saturday (it is like a Joann's or Michaels) to see what was on sale for the liquidation "going out of business" sale. I found these little felting kits by One Stitch Two Stitch (they have a website on the box, but it doesn't seem to work, but it looks like a Coats & Clark product because the Coats logo is on the bottom of the box. I bought three kits, one to make little change purses, one to make bracelets and one to make hats. The great thing about these kits is that there is enough materials in each to make more than one project! The yarn used is a bamboo/wool blend.

I started off with the change purses. The first thing you do is crochet the pieces normally (no new technique here). Here is what the first change purse looked like before I sewed it in half:

I then finished crocheting the other two purses and seamed them up, as well as the embellishments.

Then, they went into a pillowcase that was tied off at the end (so the pieces didn't get stuck under the agitator of the washing machine:

Here are the pieces after they came out of the washing machine, "felted":

Close-up of one of the purses... this is what the "felted" stitches look like... quite fuzzy (note, the picture is actually in FOCUS, it is the material that is fuzzy!):