Felting Wool

 So, recently I saw the Around the world felted wool blanket tutorial over at the Purl bee and decided we had to have one for our house. Unfortunately , the $12.50 a sheet price tag one the felted wool they sell in their shop is way a bit out of my price range. So, I set to work looking for wool at my local thrift shops. Living in southern Georgia wool sweaters where not super plentiful, but wool blazers were! So I decided to try felting them, too. Looking in the womens section I was able to find a huge selection of solid colors and it was fairly easy to find 100% wool.

 After felting all my collected wool, I found that the suiting gives a thinner loft than the sweaters that I liked very much for this particular project. I think this is because they are a thinner thread and tighter weave to begin with than the knit sweaters. Also, the suit wool doesn't shrink  as much as the knit sweaters, so you'll have more of it in the end. It defiantly felted though and made beautiful squares.

 

Felting your own wool is pretty much the easiest thing in the world. In fact you've probable made some on accident before. All you need to do is: take your gathered wool apart. (e.i. cut sweaters in to front, back, and two sleeves, for the blazers it's a bit more work with your seem ripper but you'll be happy with the amount of fabric your left with at the end of the process,promise). Then, wash on hot with cold rinse and don't forget the soap. Wool is usually dry clean only so it probably won't be color safe so either wash like colors together in batches or if your like me and just want to get it done, invest in some Shout Color Catchers so your colors stay true. Repeating the wash cycle and/or using the dryer on your wool will give you tighter felts, so experiment and see what you like best. Me, I like a once round in the wash and then a rack dry. once your wool is dried hit it with your iron set to wool with steam after that it's ready to go!  

Note: your pieces do not have to be 100% wool for the felting to work, but the more wool in the garment the better your final results, so I would suggest skipping anything lower that 70% . Also, note that you can felt other natural animal fibers so alpaca , llama , if you can find it try felting it.  

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Here's a picture of all my squares all laid out before I bagged the rows. So far I've got one and a half of my rows sewn together. Once I'm actually sitting down working on this, it doesn't take long to get a row done. It's just finding the time to sit still with out a toddler grabbing at me for attention. So I think this will be an on going side project and I'll keep you up dated on my progress. Anyway, I'm pretty happy to be getting this blanket for under $50 instead of  $300+ , plus I've got so much extra felted wool now! I just can't decide what to do with it all!