Genius Tips
Hideous Felting by Accident: Avert Your Eyes!
If you’re going to blab your prouds, blab your sorries. In the spirit of living up to my ethical obligation to confess wrongdoing, I give you:
This.
This matted tangle, composed of highly compressed wool and kid mohair of the finest quality, for which I paid full price, used to be on its way to being a Best Friend Cardigan, by Twinkle. I was making this for daughter Carrie, and I was almost done. All that was needed was a quick wash ’n’ block to see if I could get the thing to expand a little before sewing a few short seams, putting it on my girl and snapping some self-satisfied photos in an idyllic setting.
I was cocky. I had been having great success using my little washer, a front loader that uses about a half-cup of water per load, on the “handwash” cycle, to soak my knitting and spin most of the water out before blocking. No more tedious soaking-in-sink (requiring removal of dishes), followed by rolling things up in towels to squeeze out the water. The gentle washing machine would barely jostle it, in cool, harmless water, and spin it to damp-dry perfection.
It didn’t work out that way.
It came out of the washer so boardy that even if I sew it up for a much smaller girl, it’s just not what comes to mind when one thinks of “garment, human.”
I’m trying to console myself thinking about what a sturdy little jacket it will make for the ten-pound terrier in my house. Warm enough for picturesque romping in snowdrifts! Mohair is her favorite chewing fiber (next to Number 2 pencils)! I can make trivets out of the leftovers! Still, not a very satisfying conclusion. When you’re knitting a dog sweater, you want to know that early on.
I so feel your angst. I love that you shared it too!! The dog is going to love you forever! ❤️❤️
Oh dear! That is a sad story! Pretty nice for a dog sweater!
This happened to me once because my mom had the hot and cold inputs switched on her machine, so I completely empathize!
Knit happens
I did that with a lovely red cardigan…so sad.
Handbag. Someone needs a handbag.
My solution to an almost identical situation was to cut off the sleeves (haven’t decided what to use them for, but coffee cup sleeves are still a possibility) and put the remaining sweater on a hanger to use as a two-sided holder for my circulars. 16” and 24” on the front, longer ones on the back, from smallest at the top to largest at the bottom. Best storage I’ve ever and. Some day I may embroider the numbers, but for now masking tape is doing a fine job. Of course, if my cat would wear a sweater, it might have been a different story.
I meant “best storage I’ve ever had….
I remember my mother carefully washing a white baby garment she had knitted and scorching it by drying it by the fire. My booboo was washing all my baby woollen in the washing machine at the same time, not knowing that the temperature knob was broken….. they all felted and shrank. I felt like a criminal, all that work wasted.
Aaaack! sniff.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. I did this exact thing to my Am Kamin sweater. I mourned. Then I made a laptop sleeve and another sweater. Next time I went back to a top loader.
OMG I came on this site as an experienced crocheter looking into challenging my limited knitting skills. After reading this, terror has filled my heart although these type of issues come up in crochet, creating is less time consuming than Knitting. oh my heart does break for you.
Oh dear! How painful! And courageous!
I had knitted a lace afghan of pure super soft wool years ago. Good intentions–my mom and sister threw it in the washing machine–well… you know it. That hurt so bad I just threw it away, it wasn’t even useful as a rag.
This is my first visit to your site, golly, it is great! Thank you for it!!