Felting?

How-to Questions
1

I made the other day a small swatch out of some light orange yarn that I believe is 100% wool, but I got no progress on felting. My washing machine doesn’t have the large pole in the center (it’s a whirlpool cabrio, I think) so that might be the problem, but I don’t know what happened. I don’t have the ball band handy, so I’m not sure that the issue might be something else, as I bought it 75% off from a “damaged bin” (all that was wrong with it was that the wrapper was falling off, I made sure it seemed okay before buying it), but I’m off to check for the band. Only one of the 7-8 balls I got had one on it.

Any ideas on what could have gone wrong?

Thanks in advance.

2

Some wools are treated to be ‘superwash’–that is, the are able to be washed in a machine without felting. Maybe that’s it?

3

Yea, I found the band, and there’s nothing that says it’s superwash, and it’s hand wash flat dry, but I located reviews for it on JoAnn’s website (I got it there) and a bunch of people had issues with it felting as well. Oh well, there goes my ideas for it.

4

Someone just posted in another thread about some brightly colored yarn that is bleached and then re-dyed and that it has a problem felting–kind of like trying to felt white yarn. Maybe that’s the issue?