Felting

I had a number of balls leftover of the variegated wool from Ice - because you can only buy them in 8 packs and I generally use about three or four 50 gram balls in a scarf. And given how fluffy and 100% wool it was I thought it would be great for an experiment in felting! I wish I'd taken a before photo, but I didn't. You'll just have to imagine it. I also put wool on the warp, but because of the breaking warp threads I used shades of blue and cream merino three ply that I had in the cupboard. It didn't felt, so I suspect it was superwash.

And this is the result. I used a variety of methods - much of the internet recommends using your washing machine but even on the "hot" setting my machine puts in quite a lot of cold water and I can't adjust it manually. So that didn't work, and I went to a bucket and hot water and agitation. But that didn't really work either (and I was getting tired arms) so I put it in a pot on the stove and boiled the shit out of it for twenty minutes.

There is something about a felted product that is very feral and hippy. The edges were all over the place even with blocking. When I took it out of the boiling I tried to shape it so the edges were even - which works really well with just ordinary wet finished weaving - but this had felted firmly into major wobbles. And the superwash warp hadn't felted so you can still see vertical stitch definition.

I do like what happened with the variegation. It is a lovely gentle blend from one colour to the next. And it is super warm (but not very bendy). I am not thrilled with it to be honest, but I had to have the experiment. And look how much colour runs when you boil the wool! This warp (the fringe) was cream and light blue, and now it is purple and pink.