Felting Question

General Knitting
1

I am in desperate need of a knitting bag so have started the Booga bag in Noro Iro and size 6mm needles.

I have been doing some reading on felting and found out that you have to use relatively big needles to allow the yarn space to shrink and felt together. Since most people use 6.5mm or 7mm needles to knit this bag I am now wondering if my needles are to small.

Would I be better off frogging and start again with bigger needles or do you think it would felt ok and not turn out rock hard.

Also I wanted this bag a bit bigger so cast on 50 stitches and knitted 42 rows and the base measures 14.75 inches long and 6.25 inches wide. can anybody tell me how much the bag will shrink not sure how tall to knit it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

I am by no means an expert, but when I am knitting an item to be felted I use needles 2 sizes larger than the guage of the yarn. It is true that you need space the wool to felt and pull in so that ideally the look of the stitches disappear. The bag should look freakishly large before throwing it in the washer.

3

The only way to really know for sure is to do a swatch and felt it. Felting is so hard to estimate. It depends on the yarn, how tightly you knit, your felting method, etc. Do a little piece, measure it, felt it, and measure it again. You do want your booga bag to be pretty sturdy, but it’s all up to you how much!

Kelly

4

Noro Iro calls for needle size 6-7 mm, so I would use a larger needle size for a felted project.

5

That yarn recommends a needle size 6-8mm (10-11 US). The reason you see people using smaller needles is because the yarn recommended for the bag is worsted weight. For worsted weight those needles are large. So you definitely need to go up if you are going to use a bulky yarn.

6

Thanks for all the replies.

I will frog and start again with a 8mm needle. I imagine that bigger is better because you could always just wash again until you get the desired effect.

7

I would go a couple sizes bigger than that, but base it on how loose the knitting is. It needs to be loose to felt properly. Let us know how it goes!

8

I have restarted my bag using 8mm (they were the largest needles I had in a circular) The fabric is quite loose so I imagine it will be OK.

Here is a photo so far

My next question is, once the bag has been felted can you was it in the washing machine when it gets dirty, or will it carry on shrinking? Would I be better of treating it as a hand wash item?

9

I’ve only felted swatches, but I have heard that it makes your item stronger if you twist your stitches (by knitting through the BACK of the knit stitch)