Feelings about Felt

These past few weeks have been so incredibly full of yarn that my mind is having trouble recognizing anything else. You see about a month ago I fell down my stairs and broke my ankle and now all I do is lie around, watch DVD’s, sleep an incredible amount and play with yarn. My latest endeavor involved felting. I wanted to see the difference between my favorite crochet stitch felted and the general knitted stockinette stitch.

I love the pattern crochet makes, I love the freedom of crochet. For some reason knit feels restrictive to me, something about a needle in each hand makes me feel less creative than when I just have the hook and the yarn. There is no logic behind any of it, just sentimentality and a stubborn “but I don’t want to learn a new style” attitude. But I think felting is the one thing that makes me put down the hook and pick up the needles without complaint. The amazing texture and durability that comes out of felting knit goods makes me completely forget my disdain for the needles.

So these past few days have been the felting experiment days. My godmother (who has been taking care of me while I am on crutches) is a batik artist so her washing machine is set to an extra hot temperature. Because of my lack of mobility I decided when felting this week that using the washing machine would be easiest for everyone involved but I really want to use my Godmother’s boil out tubs and a wash board next time just to see what it’s like. The crochet retains it’s design in the washing machine, it is more of a shrinking process than an actual felting but nonetheless it is still pretty and different, it gives me new options for crochet. But the true art comes in the felted knits.

My godmother tells a story about how she was first taught about felting. In art school she learned about a tradition where the felters would take wool and poor boiling hot water over it, wrap it in a blanket and then tie it to the back of a horse to agitate it. I think this would be my preferred way of felting if I had a horse and a lot of time on my hands.

In the end my knitting really paid off with the creation of this felt clutch. I love the boldness of the colors and the strength given to the material by the felting process. On the other hand this is a purse I crocheted and felted and while I still love the colors and style of the purse and I can tell that some strength was added in the process it is nothing compared to the drastic change that occurs with knit.

I need to go finish some projects and enjoy the sun,
The Snail