Felting Woes

For the past year, I’ve been sporadically working on a large, crocheted throw. The throw is made up of 25 individual felted squares which tie together to form a blanket. The crochet work wasn’t hard, but it took a long time, so I was very excited when I finally finished and was ready to begin my first felting attempt. I did some research to find the best way to felt my work in the washing machine. Everyone agreed: some ivory soap, heavy duty cycle, hottest wash, lowest amount of water, check frequently to make sure your piece hasn’t shrunk too much. I followed the instructions to the letter, but my results were nowhere near the level of feltedness I was looking for (read practically unfelted). What was I doing wrong? No one even mentioned the possibility that a full wash cycle wouldn’t felt my piece. I thought about running it through again, but at the very slow rate it was felting per wash, I was afraid it would take way too many cycles to actually reach felt quality. I tried hand felting it, but it took even longer to felt just one square. I couldn’t imagine felting 25 by hand. So, I did some more research. I didn’t find anything new, except one throwaway line on someone’s website about not bothering to add boiling water to the wash. None of the instructions I read mentioned the boiling water trick, so I thought maybe I’d give it a try. After some experimentation, I came up with a method that finally achieved results, although it wasn’t as simple as throw it in the wash. In the interest of helping others who may also have overly gentle washing machines achieve felting perfection, I’m sharing the technique that worked for me.

1. Put your piece in the washing machine with about 1 tablespoon of liquid ivory soap. If the load is small, add something cotton and non-pilling (no towels) to the load. I used a white canvas laundry bag I happened to have around.
2. Set the washer to its hottest temperature, lowest amount of water, and the heavy duty load.
3. Start the washer.
4. Put a pot of water on to boil.
5. Watch the washer, as soon as the wash cycle is completed and before the rinse cycle starts, stop the machine and check your piece. If it is felted to your liking skip to step 7, otherwise move on to the next step.
6. Add the pot of boiling water to the machine, and restart the wash cycle. Put another pot on to boil. Repeat this step until the piece is felted to your liking.
7. Once your piece is felted perfectly, change the water temperature to the coldest setting, and let the washing machine continue through the rinse and spin cycles.
8. Remove your piece from your machine, shape it, and let it air dry.

I ended up running my pieces through the wash cycle about 7 times before it actually looked like felt. I’m glad I finally figured it out, and my blanket is now even closer to being done. I can’t wait to have a finished product after working on this project for so long.