serendipitous fulling produces... chenille & fun fur!

[Eugenie]

I have been obsessed for awhile with making a rainbow striped garment for my dd using this twisted loop texture. I was inspired by something I saw in a magazine.

 

 

However while the beautiful peruvian merino I used in this sample actually gave me the look I wanted it would have been quite $$$ ($11/skein and I thought it might take 2 skeins of six colors)

 

I have been searching for an alternative so when I saw Patons Classic Merino Wool at AC Moore - for 3.74 a skein - I thought that it was worth a try. However the result was just not quite what I had in mind. The loops were not twisty enough and the result distinctly reminded me of a rainbow/unicorn hooked rug I made from a kit in 1977

 

 

So I started my adventures in fulling. After doing a swatch test I decided to cut the loops open on part of the fabric and leave them intact on the other side. Then I fulled the garment - but not completely. Just enough to plump the fibers but still leave some stitch definition.

 

The uncut loops became nubby like chenille

 

This partial fulling resulted in about 12-14% shrinkage horizontally and less than 2% vertically. True fulling with the same wool shrunk more in my swatch test (25% horizontally and 11% vertically).

 

Sure you can buy chenille or boucle novelty yarn but sometimes you want to use natural fibers! The Patons classic wool merino comes in so many great colors and is quite nice to work with.

 

Sorry if this post is written strangely but the comma button on my keyboard is not working

[nataleeza]

Interesting

 

Fulling and felting is really intriguing, huh?

Thanks for sharing, I'll keep it in mind next time I'm having a play with felting.

[Roli]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to post your experiences. You had a great idea there, modifying the yarn to achieve a whole new look. I've only ever made a felted bag but loved the whole process. I'll have to get more creative in the future after seeing this!