So with my newest prized possession comes some inspiration as well. I decided I would try my hand at felting sweaters. I'm not really sure what I will do with them once they are done, but hey, I'm feeling inspired right?
Off to the thrift shops I went. I was on the hunt for 100% wool sweaters that didn't say machine washable on the label. From what I've researched so far, any wool that says "machine washable" has been treated with a chemical that will prevent it from shrinking, not ideal when shrinking is the goal. I must have visited at least 5 or 6 different thrift/resale stores over the past week looking for just the right colors and styles of sweaters for my "upcycling" purposes. Finding wool sweaters was not as easy as you might think. Is it possible that there are other crafty chicks out there looking to felt up some woolly wonders? In the end, I found 9 beauties that I think will be fun to shrink. Here are photos of some of my finds!
Ready to felt! I loaded up my machine with a small amount of detergent and set the cycle to "sanitary" as that is my machine's hottest wash cycle. My washer didn't offer a choice of temperature for the rinse water so I just let the machine do it's thing. I didn't really mind putting the different colors together, but I suppose if I was doing something bright red or blue I would separate them from light or cream colors. Also, I did not add any towels for aggitation or place my sweaters in pillow cases as recommend on other websites. In the end, only 6 of my sweaters felted up which left me wondering what happened to the other 3. Perhaps I will never know, but I suppose that's part of the fun? Here are some of my newly felted treasures and a list of my best practices. Enjoy!
Best Practices!!
1. Choose your sweaters carefully. Even from a thrift shop, expect to pay between $3-$8 per sweater. Try to find sweaters with the fabric labels still attached. One of my sweaters did not have a label and I thought for sure it was wool, turns out it wasn't! I look for 100% wool sweaters which do not say "superwash" or "machine washable in cold." I did buy a couple that said "handwash" and they came out fine.
2. I have read that you can felt any kind of natural fiber (silk, cashmere ect.) but I'm not convinced. I bought a couple different cashmere sweaters, one of them felted, but the other did not. Both labels said "dry clean only." The one that did felt was just sort of OK, perhaps not as thick as it could have been. You can always wash them again until you reach your desired level of felting.
3. Buy them big! Some of the sweaters I bought were sized XXL to start, and by the time they were felted would only fit a toddler. So, if you want the most of amount of felted fabric, try not to start with a size small.
4. Visit thrift shops often. I found that one thrift shop was almost 100% different on my next visit 4 days later, keep at it!
5. Be adventurous! Try pants or old coats or blazers.... then report back here how they came out! My experiments to come!
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