And the bead felting experiment goes on...

Thursday, March 01, 2012

And the bead felting experiment goes on...

So I'd felted my knitted beads in the food mixer, and although I loved their 'fuzziness', they were still quite squashy and soft. I decided to just pop them in a zip up laundry bag and threw them in with a regular 40-degree wash (along with a full load of washing). I repeated this again the next day -

Hopefully, you can see that they are firmer and rounder, but they've lost their fuzziness and the stitch definition is back - something I'm trying to avoid.

So back to the hand mixer felting I went. I wanted to avoid any more casualties, so I just attached 1 beater this time to the mixer and it felt a lot less perilous whilst they were whirling around the bowl.

I'm really quite pleased with how they've turned out and they're now lovely, round and firm. I'm tempted to needle felt some simple designs onto some of them and string them up into bracelets. The handspun merino ones seem to have felted the best, which is good to know as I've got bags and bags of coloured merino tops.

If anybody would like me to post the knitting pattern for these, just let me know. Comments are very much appreciated, it lets me know I'm not just wittering on to myself like a madwoman!