Felting: Take your knitting a little bit farther

Felting is something that every knitter should try at least once. Many beginning knitters go through a felting phase, but those of us who have been knitting for a while should definitely revisit the practice. Felting is not just for newbies - it's a great way to show off some cool effects, too.

Felting your knitting is technically a process called "fulling," but only the most pedantic of knitters will correct you on it. To felt your knitting, you do everything wrong: wash it in hot water, with harsh soap and a lot of agitation. Those three things (heat, detergent, agitation) cause the wool fibers to shrink and lock up with each other, turning your knit fabric into a (hopefully) homogenous sheet of felt.

Because all stitch definition is lost in the felting process, this is not the place to do cables, stitch patterns, or entrelac. All of that coolness of those techniques will be lost when it turns to felt. However, the process is also a great way to camouflage any mistakes you may have made. Particularly when it comes to colorwork.

Thus, felting is a great way for beginners to practice stranded colorwork and techniques like intarsia or short rows. If your tension is a bit wobbly or you get holes in your color transitions, it won't matter once it's felted. And you can create some cool projects this way. Just check out Pam Allen's Fair Isle felted bag pattern, or this spiffy short rows felted bag.

Felting is also fun for making toys, like the felted hedgehog or the Crafty Alien patterns. For small items, it's easiest to felt them by hand, because you can shape the tiny pieces as you scrub them. But for larger items you will probably want to use a top-loading washing machine, or a (clean, new) plunger in a bucket.

Image courtesy Flickr/Bear Mountain Picnic