Wednesday 12 August 2009

The Felting Experiment

Felted wool is supposed to be wind-proof and very warm. And nicer looking than some of the synthetic stuff around.

One of the things I was looking for on my day-trip were some wool pants that I could felt. I found two pair, pictured here with a sweater for The Geek.
While doing some research on the subject, I found you can only felt fibres, as in unwoven material such as wool. Once wool has been woven, it can only be fulled. And of course, once it has been made into a garment, it can only be shrunk. I may, out of sheer obstinacy, still refer to it as felting or fulling as that sounds planned, rather than shrinking, which just sounds like carelessness.
The pants on the left, which bore this tag, shrunk, I mean fulled, the better of the two pairs at about 7 cm in length and 2 cm in width, but the sweater below, which Tina found at a rummage sale, was the best. It diminished by 15 cm in length and 10 cm in width. It will probably be quite cozy now, whereas before it was so loosely woven that you could see through it.

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