Over the past 4 years I have done countless felting projects and although I usually get consistent results felting is always a bit of a wild card, and sometimes there are surprises! For example, I was recently working on a crochet bowl (prototype #1) for an upcoming pattern. I made about 6 increase rounds, and 3 plain rounds holding two strands of Patons Classic Wool. I was excited to see how the felting process would transform the bowl, but I was in for a bit of a shock. My nicely shaped bowl turned out not to be bowl shaped at all, but rather it was as flat as a pancake.
Yep, that's my bowl...
...not very pretty, but I figured that this would be a good opportunity to talk about some ways to recover a felting project that has gone awry. My first thought was to needle felt on a funky design and use it as a hot pad for my pots, but I was curious as to how much I could reshape it. While it was still wet I placed the felted wool over an upside down bowl and I gently stretched the fabric into shape.
Much to my delight I was able to reshape the fabric back into a bowl and once the wool is dry it will hold it's shape.
What do you do, though, if your project is impossible to reshape into a useful object? Well, I recently came across Jan Howel, a designer that sells sewing patterns that utilize the wool from recycled sweaters. You can view her lovely creations here. I haven't tried it yet, but I plan on saving all of my felting mishaps and I look forward to transforming them into something new and wonderful!
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