I’ve never felted anything and have no clue what I’m doing!!
I’m making a felted crochet hook holder, but I’m not entirely confident in felting it.
I’ve done a piece in DC that is 17" long and roughly 4-5 inches wide. I want to felt it to become 7" long. I know I have to put it in a mesh bag or pillowcase and wash it in hot water, but that’s about it.
It’s entirely 100% wool. Any tips/suggestions/how to’s/what NOT to do’s/etc ???
This is what I do:
Put it in the bag and stick it in your washer, lowest water setting, hot water, with a pair of jeans and a couple drops of dishwashing detergent. I actually keep a bottle of it near my washer these days.
NOTE: If you have a front loading washer, it’s going to be very very hard to do this. Go to the laundromat.
Anywho, start the wash and, after about 5 minutes, stop and check your fabric. Different yarns felt differently. Case in point: I made this gorgeous crocheted beret the other day with SWS yarn, checked it after 5 mins, needed a bit longer, 5 minutes later, it was too small. grrrrrrrrr…
When your fabric reaches the size you want, take it out of the bag, wring it out, run it under cold water and squeeze out all the soap. I then roll it in a towel to remove even more moisture. Pull it into shape if you need to and then let it air dry. I don’t put it in the drayer because it’ll shrink even more.
Another thing I’ve been doing lately is going to Goodwill and buying wool sweaters. They felt up quick and then you have this nice piece of fabric for about the price of one skein of yarn. Way cool. I’m working on some cuff designs with my large glass disks. It’s amazing what you can do.
Good luck!
Thanks for that!!
Wool sweaters!! Why didn’t I think of that!!!?? Thank You!! 
sigh I have no idea why, but it isn’t working. I know it’s 100% pure wool because the description says so. I’ve used pure hot water, put it in with a pair of blue jeans (adult ones), put the machine on a heavy duty wash, and I’ve run it through twice now!!
It’s hardly done anything at all… Hmmm… I’ve got it in the dryer now to see if that will do anything. shrug
Hmmmmmmmmmmm, what’s up with THAT, I wonder?
Let me know what happens. I’ve sometimes had to run things more but, in the end, they felt.
Hot water
Low water level
Jeans
dish soap
100% wool
Is it superwash wool? If that’s the case, it won’t felt from what I hear.
I hate when that happens…
I am noticing that diferent yarns react differently. My cascade 220 felts at a medium rate but my lopi and ecological wool bag is taking forever. I knew it would from the swatch I ran at the beginning of the project.
Just beware of Taos from Crystal Palace!!! It felts VERY quickly, and shrinks [SIZE=“5”][B]ALOT[/B][/SIZE]!! I just finished two purses from Crocheted Pursenalities, one using Taos, and another using Brown Sheep. The bag I did using Taos is about 8" across at the largest point, where the pattern states that the finished product should be 14". The other bag’s dimensions are right on.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the first bag. I’m just a bit disappointed in how much it shrank!!!
Well… it didn’t do much shrinking at all. In fact, it only shrunk about an inch and that was AFTER two wash cycles (hot water on low water level, a pair of jeans, 100% wool, a bit of dish washing liquid, and put both into and out of a pillow case and THEN dried in a hot dryer).
But it’s actually a good thing because it’s the perfect size to hold all of my crochet hooks (it was for the Kluster crochet hook holder pattern). So it worked out in the end. And when I make one for my MIL, I’ll know how big to make the piece before I felt it. 
Thanks for all the help!