Felt Swatches
Aug 30th, 2009 by elle
I’ve been preparing to knit up my camera case, and of course that means… swatching!
This is when you knit up a test amount of fabric, usually that is 20 stitches by 20 rows. From there you can determine your gauge, another knitting term, that refers to how many stitches you get in a cm. In the case of felting you actually have to knit your swatch, then felt it – I wash mine in my washing machine with regular clothes and washing liquid – and then you take the measurement of the size… I actually draw a line around the piece I’m swatching before and after it’s felted, because that way you’ve got both measurements, and you can determine what the shrinkage percentage is both vertically and horizontally, because they don’t shrink by the same amount. Knitting that is felted by washing will always shrink more vertically than horizontally.
Also, not all yarns will felt the same way, and only yarns made from natural woollen fibres will actually felt, which means the fibres mesh together and bond that way, there’s no way to un-felt anything that has been felted. I’ve got some nice yarn that is 70% wool and 30% soya, and that felts to the point where the stitches are no longer definable, but I’ve also got some 100% wool and that felts with the stitches still being clearly visible, but is softer than it was before hand and fluffier, but a contained fluffy.
Some knitters aren’t thrilled by the idea of felting because they feel they are losing the clarity of stitch work that shows how much work has gone into a project, and whilst I can understand that, I can also appreciate that felting also has it’s uses, and can be a real art too! Just look at what the blogger over at Wicked Woollens does with it!
This entry’s pattern has to be something felted, and something with nice colour work on it… this here is a lovely purse, one that I’m thinking of knitting up to be a good project bag. I like the idea of having a nice bag to take knitting projects with me when I’m on the bus or what not.