Winners in this project: Wool of the Andes, and Wonder Wash.

I decided to dig out a filthy Brother KH-260 bulky machine I’ve had in storage to make a couple of felted bags for an upcoming knitting demonstration. I shopped around for a feltable wool yarn, and decided to try Knit Picks’ Wool of the Andes. In the past I’ve made felted slippers and was always a little bit dissatisfied with the end product. They always had visible ridges, which I feel detracts from the quality of the felted product.

I also only ever felted plain, stockinette, and was unsure of how a fair isle knit would felt. Since the fabric is a bit denser, with the floats, I didn’t know if there would be sufficient openness in the fabric to allow lots of motion while the item was being agitated during felting.

I started with a small, 20 x 20 stitch swatch, which felted down to half size, and was incredibly dense and uniform. I knitted everything at the very largest stitch size. The final felted product with the Wool of the Andes exceeded my expectations. I’m very happy, indeed, with how this yarn felts, and will likely use it again.

The second win was the Wonder Wash portable washer. I picked this up at the thrift, and had not had a chance to use it for my intended purpose - felting knitted items. I have a front loading washer, which will felt things, but I was also hopeful that the Wonder Washer would save using the regular washing machine for felting because of the amount of fiber that is released, and how long it takes. I put very hot water and a bit of detergent in, along with my swatch and a couple of hand towels. I am very impressed with the result. The unit has a modified agitation pattern. It runs in one direction for about 10 seconds, then reverses. It has a timer that goes up to 15 minutes for a cycle. After only 2 cycles the piece was thoroughly felted. It uses much less water and does a good job. Win-win. With all of the pieces now in place, I decided to proceed with my project.

Oh, I have also never knitted with a punch card before, so that was something new to me, as well. I knitted up the bag, (additional details below), ran it through about 5 cycles in the Wonder Wash, and am quite happy with the result. This is my first felted bag, and I will definitely make more.

Details of knitting the bag
I did not use a pattern, but just made a guess at how big to make it, determined by the swatch I had knitted and felted.

T10 I started by knitting a strip for the bottom of the bag. This was 20 stitches by 70 rows. I then cast on 70 stitches to knit the sides of the bag. I knitted it sideways, and attached the bottom as I went.

I sewed up the side seam, and then attached a SAYG I-cord
around the opening. I knitted a length of I-cord for the handles and sewed them on. Felted the whole thing together. I don’t think it shrunk quite as much as my swatch did, but I’m still happy with the final size and shape of the bag.

Shaving the surface
Another new thing I tried was shaving the surface of the felt. It got pretty fuzzy during felting, and shaving with a regular, cheap drugstore razor definitely restored some of the detail.