Need MORE advice about a felted project using Kureyon

In my usual “why not just make it up?” fashion, I have decided I need to make two throw pillows for a new couch at our house. I want a good jolt of color, and more than one color at that, so I thought I would basically make “Booga pillows,” with Noro Kureyon a la the Booga Bag. The simplicity and lack of decision-making (once I choose a Kureyon color) is tremendously appealing.

My questions and concerns have to do with sizing to get the right dimensions in the end, and with judging how much yarn to buy. I know I will have to do a swatch myself and see how it felts, but I need advice about quantity of yarn for the whole project, so I can get it ordered. I have been thinking that, in order to have some margin of error, I should make each side of my pillow cover so big that it will leave a border around the pillow form, even after felting. I would stitch the borders together flat around the pillow, the way many shams are made (I hope I am making myself clear). This means I should aim for four 15 x 20" finished, felted pieces for the whole, 2-pillow project. To make it a bit more interesting, I intend to knit one with the stripes running the long way, and the other with the stripes running the short way, which I know will complicate the felting dimension-change analysis, but I’m prepared to deal with that.

My questions for you, my fabulous knitting cyber-friends, are:

  1. Will the felted fabric (double-thick) have enough substance to hold its shape as the border for the sham?
  2. Can I really trim the felted fabric without fear, if necessary? I am thinking I would sew the two pieces together around the edge, as well as around the form, and I may even do a blanket stitch around the edge, just for detail.
  3. How much yarn should I order? The on-line Booga Bag pattern here says 3 skeins per bag. Is there anyone out there who has made this bag, or something else measurable and felted, out of Kureyon, who can give me some guidance about how much yarn it will take me to produce the four 15 x 20" pieces I hope to do?
  4. Did you use #10.5 needles for your felted Kureyon project? If you made your Booga Bag according to the pattern instructions, did it felt to the size predicted? If so, how felt-y was it? Could you still see stitches well? I found this amazing Booga Bag Gallery. It has helped me a lot in visualizing how this yarn knits up. Some of the bags are much more felty than others but there is no indication how close the finished bags came to the given dimensions.

Thanks very much for reading this far!

your idea sounds WONDERFUL…and I can’t wait to see what you have come up with…but I have to tell you…this was the first time I SAW a booga bag…and man oh man…i have to STOP looking at websites I say…They are BEAUTIFUL!!! not enough money in the world to feed my habit…sigh…lol…

Great idea! I haven’t used the noro, but I have taken measurements on my felted projects. So far, it seems like they shrink about 1/3 of the original measurements. I am sure it is different for every yarn though.

It’s different for every yarn and every knitter. I love noro, and i’ve made several booga bags; each one on the same needles with the same ayrn (other than color) and they’ve all turned out differently. You could knit a small swatch and test it out (small b/c it’s expensive), but again it could change. Since it IS so expensive, maybe you could use noro on ONE side and use a solid on the other? That might make the noro side “pop” a bit more, too, besides helping to defray the cost. If you’re using 2 different yarns, though, I would definitely do a swatch, to make sure they felt at the same rate.

I just know there are lots more Booga Bag knitters out there and I think you’re holding out on me!

Thanks, Hildie, for your advice. After calculating something in the range of 12-15 skeins of Kureyon ($$$!!!), I ordered a bunch of heathery brown Cascade 220 from WEBS (yarn.com). They are having such a good sale that I ordered way more than I think I need for the backs of the pillows, so I can experiment a bit. Not only do I need to do felting swatches, I am now thinking that I might get a nicer result if I did some short row shaping to give fullness to the center of the piece. I am hoping it would be easier to block it to the shape I want, which is like one side of a piece of ravioli, full in the center with a flat border. [I wish I had a scanner and could post a sketch of what I’m thinking of.]

I’m going to reiterate one question and beg for someone to answer it. I just don’t believe you all gave every one of these great bags away!
[color=darkred]How much yarn should I order? I know you used some of your yarn for I-cord and I don’t know how to allow for that, either. Can anyone estimate the actual area of any felted Kureyon project they have and tell me the size and how much yarn went into it (2 or more skeins)? And maybe include a comment on how “far” it felted (can you see the stitches?). [/color]

I have been looking as much as I can at Kureyon colors. Although I don’t have the opportunity to see many of them in person, Google Images does help tremendously. Kureyon 128 is the one I just have to have, I think, and I did get to see at a LYS, but they only had two skeins and were pessimistic about getting more of the same color, so I think I will order online. This yarn blows me away! I would buy pounds of every color, if I didn’t have children to feed.[color=darkred][/color]

Thanks tremendously if you’ve even bothered to read all this.

I would buy pounds of every color, if I didn’t have children to feed.
Amen, sister. :roflhard:

(sorry, I haven’t felted with Noro!)

Ha, what is it about this Noro Kureyon! It’s INCREDIBLE! I fell in the love with the first colour I ever used No. 95 and I do searches all over the place and it’s very hard to find that beautiful colour! pinks and greens. My lys just lowered the price from $8.50 to $8.00 or so… but the colours they have are wretched!

I just received a order from

Wool Needlework Discounter (can’t find the exact address at the moment… Noro Kureyon for $5.75 a skein.
(thanks to Hildie’s tip) Shipping was $8.00 plus however but I got a lot of other stuff.

Noro is so beauitful. they should be making more of it.

P.S. I just looked at that colour, wow it’s incredible!

P.S.S. Oh my god, Fernwood, I just looked at that Booga Bag gallery! That is one incredible site/inspiration. Thanks!

I use down pillow forms for pillows. They are very forgiving when it comes to “shape” … they just kind of melt into your knitted cover (I have not felted a cover yet) I get them at joanns with 40% off cupon for about $8.00.

I used Noro for the Booga bag that I knitted for my daughter-in-law and it’s posted on my blog. I increased the pattern in multiples and it used 5 1/2 skeins. I ran it through the felt process twice, but failed to take measurements before and after (sorry!) When finished, the stitches are not obvious and yes, you can cut it without fear if it is felted well.

I think Hildie’s idea of using a solid color for the backing is a great idea due to the cost of the Noro. Good luck with your great idea!

Joyce

www.woolneedlework.com

I haven’t ordered from them but their prices are GOOD :notworthy: noro kureyon for $5.99 right now.

Thanks for the feedback, all. I discovered the woolneedlework site, too, and I do intend to order my Kureyon from them if I can ever decide how much to buy…
OK, I am going to take the plunge and guess for myself, based on the data in the original pattern. From their measurements, I calculate the total area of the finished bag (excluding I-cord) as 238 square inches. So 3 skeins of yarn makes ~238 sq in felted, + I-cord. Each of my pillow fronts will be ~300 sq in, so maybe about 3 skeins each. I will order 8 skeins, to be safe.

The more I think about this, the more complicated it becomes. :?? I really think I have to do some shaping to create volume, because the felted fabric won’t be stretchy like a non-felted knit. I believe it will require both increases and short rows. Good thing I ordered a lot of the Cascade 220! I have already begun a little acrylic “mock-up” to work on this shaping problem, then I’ll try a piece in Cascade, with shaping, to felt and try to get it all down to math before I do anything more than a swatch with the Kureyon. It is getting quite “interesting,” in a way that is making my brain hurt :shock: , but I think it will be very gratifying if I can make it work! Maybe tonight or tomorrow I will photograph a sketch of my “pattern” (how I am conceptualizing the shaping) to post. Then, when I ever get the actual item knitted and felted, you can see if it turns out according to plan.

To get from my flat border into my full, over-the-pillow, part of my piece, I need to do both stitch increases and short rows, to add “height” (that’s when the work is horizontal) both lengthwise and widthwise. When I go back down to the border at the other end, I think I need to do stitch decreases, but add in short rows again. Is knitting strange or am I totally confused? If it’s right, it’s just not very intuitive… My brain is hurting again!