little felt bowl

No lambs today. I can't believe it is possible that Holly can hang on for ten more days, but if the ram didn't catch her the first time, that will be her next due date. Poor thing!

That gives me a chance to share my little project. I wanted to experiment further with knitting straight from roving (instead of making it into yarn first), as I did with my messenger bag. This time I decide to felt the knitted object instead of just fulling it.

Pre-felting, it looked rather unpromising:

I felted this one by hand in a sink of hot water and dish detergent, with a pot of ice water to shock it in every so often and hopefully speed the felting process along.

Why hot water and detergent? Think of what happens when you wash a wool sweater in the laundry: hot water, agitation and detergent cause the wool fibers to stick together, shrink, and make a more fabric-like substance. In other words, felt—the name for the process and the finished result!

I felted the heck of it by hand, but I think next time I will go back to the washing machine, and may even toss this one in there for a bit more felting. My hands weren't too happy with me being submerged in that hot water.

I was quite pleased with the little felt bowl that it produced, though I want to experiment a bit more with the pattern and the process.