Firsts!

I decided to finally start working on the sweaters I got from Good Will a while ago. This was the first time I have felted anything, but I have heard of many other people who did it accidentally easily so I thought it wouldn’t be bad.

First off, I realized later on that I put too much soap in. Yeah, definitely too much when you can put it through the rinse cycle once, add more water, and then still get suds like this! Plus it seemed to take forever to felt the sweaters, or at least a lot longer than I thought it should. I must have run it through the agitate cycle at least 5 times. I even ended up getting a pot of ice water to try to shock the fibers into felting before I was finished.

Next time though, I will definitely put the sweaters in a pillowcase, because the amount of fuzz generated was phenomenal! This is just a small part. Believe me, I could have stuffed a cat with the amount that was generated.

In the end I have six sweaters I have felted, which I laid out to dry. Looked like the fallen on a battlefield. There was another sweater that didn’t felt, I’m not sure why because all of the tags said 100% wool. The yarn was really fine, so it did rip a few holes in the sweater. I don’t know what I will end up doing with that one.

For the rest of the project, you’ll have to stay tuned and see what happens.

I also picked the first of the tomatoes from my garden today. I did very well restraining myself from eating them before I got the camera and took this picture. I’m letting the one ripen a bit more, but the other one was good!