Learn to Make Incredibly Shrinking Knits Like a Pro!
Sarah E. White, About.com's Guide to Knitting,
shares her tips and techniques for making perfectly felted items in
her new book, Picture
Yourself Felting Your Knitting from Thomson Course Technology.
Felting is a huge trend in the fiber arts right now as knitters look to expand their skills and create one-of-a-kind objects. Now knitters can learn the basics and try their hand at this craft by working from a book filled with easy, step-by-step instructions fully illustrated in color.
It's the next best thing to having a teacher in your living room (and your laundry room) showing you how it's done.
What is Felting?
Before we get too far into how Picture Yourself Felting Your Knitting can help you expand your craft, you may be wondering: what exactly is felting?
Have you ever accidentally washed a wool sweater in the washing machine and found it a few sizes too small when you removed it from the wash? That's felting.
Crafters can turn what was once just an annoying quality of wool and other animal fibers to their advantage by deliberately knitting something larger than they want it to be, throwing it in the washing machine (or felting it by hand with hot water) and ending up with a smaller object.
Why Would You Want to Do This?
Felting makes a firm, warm, thick fabric that is perfect for hats and scarves. It's also a great choice for bags because there are no holes between the stitches as there would be in a regular knit bag.
Felting is great for people who are new to knitting because all the stitch definition disappears when you felt, meaning no one will ever know if you knit some rows more tightly than others or if you made any mistakes.
Learn from a Pro
Sarah E. White has been knitting and crafting for most of her life and became the About Guide to Knitting in 2006. She has a passion for sharing her craft with others and helping others to expand their skills.
For this book she has designed 20 projects that incorporate knitting and felting, needle felting, wet felting and even using commercially produced sweaters to make felt that is then sewn into felted objects.
Picture Yourself Felting Your Knitting is a complete education in felting for knitters of all skill levels. If you're a new knitter and have never tried felting before, you'll gain confidence by learning:
- How and why felting works.
- How to felt by hand and why you would want to.
- How to felt by machine.
- How to tell when your felting is done.
- How to keep your felt the shape you want after it's felted.
- How to care for felts.
- How to make patterns your own through embellishment.
More experienced knitters who've felted a thing or two in the past will also find great tips and tricks in this book, such as:
- Everyday objects to add to your washing machine to make felting easier.
- How to make a felted hat and other objects that needs to stay a particular size.
- How to use wet felting, needle felting and sweater felting to expand your crafting horizons.
- How to design your own knitting projects (Sarah walks you through a design and gives you tons of ideas for your own projects).
- A before-and-after gallery of felted swatches so you'll know what a yarn looks like when it's felted before you buy it for your felting projects.
All the techniques used in the book are fully explained so that even new knitters can pick this book up and begin working from it immediately. The projects build on each other, from the simple to the more complex and larger. Once you've worked through the book, you'll not only be comfortable as a felter but you'll be a much more experienced knitter, too.
The Patterns
Picture Yourself Felting Your Knitting has a great variety of patterns to get your creative juices flowing, including:
- Coasters
- Scarves
- Striped belt
- Cat toy
- Baby blanket
- Envelope purse
- Needle-felted bag
- Messenger bag
- Wine cozy made from a sweater
- Wet-felted flower
- And many more
If you've always wanted to learn how to felt but have been afraid of the unpredictability of the process, or you're an old pro at felting but would like to learn some new techniques, check out Picture Yourself Felting Your Knitting today.
