Let me give you a little background before you hear about my disastrous experience.
I am a mother of 3 small children and money is VERY tight. Well a new yarn shop opened up in town and I had to go see it. I fell head over heels with this beautiful yarn. I looked at the price in total shock. Surely it must be priced wrong… $28 a skein??? ( I need 2 skeins). Having used red heart yarn all my life, this seemed outrageous. Well after a whole lecture from the shop owner about natural fibers and everything. I understood the price, but could no way justify it. $60 for yarn? That is almost a week worths of food for my family.
I really wanted to make Fibre trends Maggie’s felted tote, but obviously not with that yarn. I decided to keep looking at rummage sales and on ebay for 100% wool yarn that I could afford.
I told my hubby about the yarn, but that was about it.
Well mothers day rolls around… and guess what my loving hubby got me… Yes!!! The yarn… 2 glorious skeins of yarn and the tote pattern to go along with it! I couldn’t believe it!
Well I stared at the yarn for almost a full week… it was too expensive… But hubby said go ahead and use. Well tonight I finally finished the beautiful tote. I even had some extra yarn to make a can holder and a tiny tote called My Special Companion. I was thrilled! 3 Things! completed.
Well I read forum and articles until I was blue in the face… I wanted to know everything there was about felting… can’t wreck a $50 bag… I even bought a pillow case protector to put in it to wash it to make sure everything came out OK.
I was soooo excited to felt it… I worked to hard on the bag… I followed every instruction to a T. Stitch count, gauge, gauge sample… Everything! ( I’m usually really carefree about my crochet projects) But I really wanted this to me perfect.
The time came… I felted it in the washing machine exactly how I did my swatch… Everything came out perfect… even the icords,which I was worried about, I read about how they can get tangled and stuff… Everything except for the bag that is… Just look…
We pulled as hard as we could… no hope… It is felted together. they touched I guess and fused themselves together. WHAT HAPPENED??? How was I suppose to prevent this?
What did I do wrong?
I am so sorry! I think we can all imagine how you’re feeling, when you’re in love with a project and it turns out badly, not to mention the price! What a lovely hubby you have.
I would take it to the shop and ask for help from someone who has more experience felting.
Now you know you can cut felted knitting without it unravelling right? If I couldn’t get advice from someone else to fix it I would get a sharp new craft knife, like a scalpel, and gently slowly carefully cut apart the pieces that are not meant to be stuck together, thinking very carefully about whether this cut is going to make a hole in the bag, or just separate two sides you want separated. I would do a tiny little cut with the knife, like2 cm long and 4 mm deep at the most.
Are those joined parts joined completely and indistinguishably from the rest of the fabric, or is the join kind of clear? Like you can see exactly how it’s different from the intentionally-joined parts, and where it needs to be cut? This is just a suggestion and it’s a last resort if there is absolutely no way of fixing the bag. remember if this doesn’t work, you still have the fabric and can still make it into a lovely bag (different shape probably of course).
BTW, congratulations, the bag looks fab, good work!
I was thinking along the lines of redwitch and in fact I would almost consider carefully slicing off that fused side because that rectangular section alone would make a lovely bag as is. It’s sooo odd it fused while in the wash…it must have happened while it dried I gather.
By the way, you did nothing wrong as such. Even should you realise at some time how this occurred, you still did nothing wrong. I would try redwitch’s suggestion and if that doesn’t work, consider the option I posed. I would certainly take it to the yarn shop IF they provide advice on felting and ask what they think may have happened…
Wow, Beverly - I have felted quite a few purses/bags and never had anything like that happen! I can sure feel your pain, though, all that money for yarn and have this happen. Did it come out of the washing maching felted/joined together like that?? Too weird!
I have no new suggetions to add, can only repeat Redwitch’s suggestions.
For some ‘more easily affordable’ 100% wool, try Lion Brand’s fishermans wool (only comes in the one color) or some of their other 100% wools that do come in colors. Patton’s Wool is also fairly inexpensive.
Good Luck. Come back and tell us what you decide to do and how it works out.
Awww I’m sorry! One way to help prevent this next time is to make sure you are checking the project during the felting process. Every 5 minutes or so go pull it out and look at it and pull apart any areas that are starting to join if they aren’t supposed to. You may be able to stuff something into it to help keep the sides from touching.
As for a fix…I was thinking the same thing…gently try to cut fibers that are connecting it. IF all else fails you can cut felted wool. So you could use it for coasters, trivets, or hot pads and no waste.
The Lion Brand Fisherman Wool does only come in one color, but I think you can dye it! I haven’t tried that yet, but it’s on my list to do. Patons Classic Wool is also a lot cheaper. You can get these at Joann, Michaels, etc.
My hubby and I tried the knife / razor blade… it is soooooo tight, ended up cutting a hole in the side of the bag. Not a big deal if I could get the rest of it apart.
Yes, it came right out of the washer looking like that… did not dry “together” like that.
I took it to the knitting store today and talked to the owner. She said the same as you all, she has never seen that happen before, and try to cut it away little by little. She kept the bag and was going to show it to her knitting group tonight, and see if they have any ideas.
Oh well…next project - Trio knitted bag by Crystal Palace ( No felting LOL) I found yarn at our other new knitting store at 40% off. HEHEHE $16 for a bag… much more in my price range anyways.
I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Make sure you get the bag back, you can make a lovely bag from the undamaged parts!! Hmmm it would look nice maybe with a thin strip of leather used in a criss-cross to join those two edges together? Or a bright different colour? If you did that and you wanted the bag symmetrical you could cut the other side apart and rejoin it the same way. Or I’m sure you had a bit of the original wool used for it left over, you could use that to sew it up to get a less obvious seam. Or make some more felted I-cord to seam it up with… or maybe you could hand-felt just the seam wool to make it blend in a bit better? But the colours are really lovely so don’t just chuck the whole lot!
BTW I think the proportions will actually be much better, the original pic looked like the bag was too wide for its height (for my taste). Let us know what you do with it!
Oh Dear! I am in the process of knitting a felted tote myself. This really scare me!. It’s my first ever felted anything. I am also working on knitting felted clogs. I too have spent ALOT of money on these two projects. I get my yarn from the knitting shop where I take classes and it’s not cheap. I think I’ll be taking my project back to them to help with the felting part. I would be so upset if I scewed them up after all the froggin I have done so far.
Am I right in what I read…You can re-use yarn that has been felted?? Can it be re-felted too?
Jan’s post made me think “So THAT’S why the Yarn Harlot duct taped a cabbage inside her chicken when she felted it!” (See her April 12 Blog “It had to get weird”.) I had no idea that that was so it wouldn’t stick together. Thanks, Jan!
Thank you all for your support… I can’t believe I’m the only person this has happened to though. Leave it to me to have a disaster on my first felting project.
BTW the yarn was Montage Collection 8ply hand painted by Jan Gilray
