Felting With a Front Loading Washer: Help/Advice Needed

[The Shrone]

I finally broke down and bought some wool for my very first felting project. I'm going to make some Mary Jane slippers. Now, I realized after buying everything that felting in a front loading washer might be different than a top loading, and was wondering how it might be different.

 

Also, the instruction say to put the items in a pillow protector. Would you recommend adding other garmets as well?

 

I will hopefully get around to doing a test swatch to see how the yarn will felt, and take it from there.

 

Any advice from seasoned felters would be most welcome and appreciated. I am feeling very uncertain about felting, and need some reassurance and a lot of borrowed experience!

 

~ Lori

[HollyM]

I have a front loader and have felted sucessfully. As long as your machine has a "cancel" button where you can stop the cycle and the door unlocks, you should be fine. If not, you'd have to let it run through it's full cycle and take your chances. I have only done bags where the ending size didn't matter so much, you might need to check a little more often for slippers that need to fit.

 

The pillowcase thing isn't crucial for the item to felt, but it will keep shed fibers contained to avoid potentially expensive repairs to unclog your machine You can put other items in the machine at the same time (jeans, towels, old sneakers or tennis balls) to increase the amount of friction applied to the piece. Those things don't have to go in the pillow case itself, just in the machine.

 

With all that said, I've found that the two buckets in the tub & a plunger method is less aggrivating as well as faster. Buy a new plunger and mark it very conspicuously as "Craft Use Only" Fill up one bucket (5gal spackle buckets are perfect) with hot water, one with cold. Put your piece in the hot water, plunge away...move it to the cold bucket for a few plunges, back to the hot and so on until it's "done". I've found I have better control over what's happening that way and use a lot less water. Doing it in the tub contains splashes.

 

Holly

[C.D.]

I am replying late to this so you probably have all ready completed your project. I hope it went well.

If by chance you have not here are my suggestions

Front loading machines do not let you stop the machine and see how your piece is felting so if hicuups in the process during, you might not be able to correct them once the cycle is done. I suggest starting on a short cycle so you can see the prosess. Usse longer cycles as it fulls.

 

I suggest putting each section into a seperate zippered pillow case. However if you want to put each piece into a nylon zippered hosiery bag then into the zippered pillow case then they should not felt together.

 

I hope this advice helps for future fulling.

[origami]

The pillowcase thing isn't crucial for the item to felt, but it will keep shed fibers contained to avoid potentially expensive repairs to unclog your machine You can put other items in the machine at the same time (jeans, towels, old sneakers or tennis balls) to increase the amount of friction applied to the piece. Those things don't have to go in the pillow case itself, just in the machine.

 

I would definitely use a pillowcase. I felted a bag last night and the pillowcase prevented lots of fibers from clogging my machine. Don't use towels if you aren't going to use a pillowcase because fibers from the towels can get into your felted item. Use old jeans. I use Eucalan (a type of soap) to help aid in the felting process.

 

Felting is fun!

[C.D.]

I would definitely use a pillowcase. I felted a bag last night and the pillowcase prevented lots of fibers from clogging my machine. Don't use towels if you aren't going to use a pillowcase because fibers from the towels can get into your felted item. Use old jeans. I use Eucalan (a type of soap) to help aid in the felting process.

 

Felting is fun!

 

I agree with the enclosing in zippered pillow cases are a must.

 

Deffinatly no towels.

I started using jeans too but:think after having the legs twist up and wrap around my pieces during fulling process:( I went to my local thrift store and found some seersucker(rough material) large cases and use it instead. It has worked well. I also place my nylon hosiery bags in my zippered pillow case to add more friction.