Thursday, May 26, 2011

BLue baby booties and pumpkins that won't felt!





I just listed a couple more items in both of my shops. I've made these during the winter months and just hadn't made the time to take pictures of them until now.

The pumpkin I made using a wool yarn so I went ahead and felted it in the washing machine BUT the main part (the orange) part didn't felt. The stem and the leaf did but the rest of it didn't so what to do now??? Aha I found some orange sheep's fleece and went to work needle felting it right over the body part that didn't felt and tadaaaaa I must say I'm pretty happy with the results. Went actually pretty fast since I had already shaped it before trying to felt it.

So yesterday I finished another pumpkin, crocheted one a white one this time making sure I used the 100% wool yarn which should definitely felt since I had used that same yarn for some other felted projects and they felted up beautifully. Wellllll, you gonna believe this ... it didn't felt again!!!! What on earth is the issue here??? I realized the problem ... see I first crochet the pumpkin but before closing it up on the top while I'm still crocheting it I fill it with fiberfill. Well, that's the problem, the fiberfill doesn't really soak up any water unless you force it too. So therefore the pumpkin ends up floating on top of the water in the washing machine which doesn't expose it to enough banging around to get it to felt properly! And that's what happened to the orange pumpkin as well since I know for a fact the yarn I used does felt up nicely. Instead of needle felting over this white pumpkin I just made (that didn't felt) I went ahead and wet felted it by hand in my kitchen sink. While I was doing that is when I figured out what the issue was because doing it by hand worked like a champ. All I have to do now is figure out how to get it to stay under water in the washing machine. If any of you have ideas on how too please let me know! Only thing I can think of is to just not fill it before felting it, I know that works since I've done it that way before but I like to fill them before I felt them.

The white one is still drying so I don't have pictures of that one yet but it should be up in my shop in the next couple of days.

I made the pumpkin pins with polymer clay, each pumpkin will come with three of them. If you like more pins or only the pins please e-mail me with your request so I can give you a quote for that.

To purchase any of these items or to see more pictures please visit my etsy shops listed on the left side of this page.

Thanks for visiting, see you again soon.

1 comment:

  1. Great booties :-) Love the pumpkin,too! To keep your items from floating in the washer, I'd put them in one of those mesh washer bags with some marbles in it.

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