Felt Swatch

For my next project, I'm making a felted purse. It's a pretty basic purse, shape-wise, so I didn't really need to create a swatch for gauge, but I thought it would be good to make one to practice felting. (I also put a "buttonhole" in the middle of it, to practice binding off/casting on, which will be used to make the handles.)

I'm glad I did, because I learned a lot about the actual felting process.

• You only need a little (2 T or so) detergent. I had so much foam I had to fish around for the swatch whenever I checked it. (It was fun, though, watching it sort of "surface" every once in awhile through the bubble, like a spawning salmon. *grin*)


• Use the 'heavy duty' setting, which agitates on 'fast.' Originally, I had it set to my usual delicates setting, which runs a lot slower. Apparently, more agitation = faster felting.


• Put the item in a zippered pillow case or something to help keep loose fibers out of the motor. I read about that online while waiting for it to felt - I don't think the small swatch I made is likely to cause problems, but the actual purse has "eyelash" yarn in it, so I'll want to be more careful then.

Before felting

After felting


Tonight, I'll start on the actual purse. Maybe I can get it done by the weekend (it's not that large).