so, felting in an apartment building is not the easiest thing. first of all you have to pay for the washing machine. secondly the machine in my building lets you chose temperature but that’s it, you can’t chose cycle length or load size. I took a chance though last night & felted two tote bags. The exciting discovery is that the machine in my building also doesn’t stop when you open the lid so getting the bags out to check how they were doing was quite a feat. I ended up letting them run through the wash cycle & then the first spin cycle (because there was no way to get them out once the spin cycle started) inside zippered pillow cases with a pair of jeans. all & all i think they came out ok…
i am much happier with how the red one came out than the brown one. i think the brown one may actually need to be felted a little more especially around the handles plus you can still see some of the stitches in it. though i’m thinking i may need to do this at a friends house who owns a machine we can actually check or i’ll have to run it through a whole other cycle.
I put a handful of CD cases inside then during drying to give the bottom a nice square shape. Matt is so not thrilled with the smell of drying wool in the kitchen…it is a little strong. Hopefully it will fade away soon.
Now I have to decide whether to try my felted bowls at home or wait to use a friends washer as well. No time to think about it this weekend though as we are off to go camping in Yosemite for the weekend. Neither Matt nor I have been before and are really excited for it.
Oh & the best news…I became an aunt for the 4th time this morning. I hear he has a full head of blond curls…i can’t wait to see.
© 2005 – 2011 Kathy Lewinski & Susan Cornish
Congratulations on your new nephew!! And I love the colours in those bags, especially the bottom one. I’m sure you’ll get that one fixed up to your liking once you get your hands on another washing machine. They look great!
Congrats Aunt Kat!!!! I really like your bags! You did a great job felting them! I am sure you can re-flet the brown one and get ti the way you want it!! Have a great time camping this weekend!!
I really like the color combo of the brown one, but it does look like it needs another go.
I love felthing, but haven’t had the patience to create anything to felt lately…
have a good weekend~
Red bag looks really good! Brown one will look just as good with more felting!
The red bag does look GREAT! Congrats on being an aunt again! ;o)
congrats on your aunthood! another thing to try is to bring a teapot of hot water to your washer to help bring the temperature up.
Congrats on becoming an aunt again!
I like the bags, especially the red one. I don’t know anything about felting, so I can’t honestly say if the brown one should have another go. I’d wait to do that and the bowls at a friends house – like you said you’d have more control over the washer (and probably wouldn’t cost as much either).
Congratulations on your new nephew, and all the very best to him!
I’m way impressed by your felting, especially considering the fact that you did it with a washing machine from an apartment building – these bags turned out awesome, I really love both of them! Great job!
You make me appreciate having my own washer & dryer. Sometimes I take things for granted, but not anymore! I love your bags .. they are beautiful!
Congrats on being an aunt (again). I’ve been an aunt now 7 times. Always an aunt… never a mommy (which is fine with me).
You know, I have yet to felt anything, intentionally at least…lol
too busy with socks and always getting sidetracked! That is beautiful!
Wow, that’s great! The one time I felted in my apartment complex laundry room, the result was lumpy and awful. I felted some Fuzzy Feet when I was back home at my parents’ house, and they came out great b/c I was able to control them.