Should have read
"Placing one shawl in the washing machine to spin out the water, she should have been warned it would cause the wool to felt."
I now have a very slightly felted Icarus Shawl. I'm rather upset, but I did it myself so I can't blame anyone but my stupidity. I now have a rather warmer version of the shawl. It didn't seem to shrink at all. It just lost some stitch definition. I used some Knitpicks Dye-Your-Own yarn, and size 2 needles. The fabric was quite dense to begin with for me, also.
Here's the whole thing. It's rather large. My rug was barely large enough.
Close up detail. You can see the slight color change from where I had to dye new yarn.
7 comments:
Ouch, how traumatic! I imagine how you must feel, but it really looks fine. Mine was a bit dense too, from using thicker yarn (but not felted), and from the picture yours looks about the same to me. It could have been much worse than that!
Yikes. But gosh, it looks absolutely beautiful.
It is still beautiful.
It looks beautiful! But I sympathize: I have accidentally felted too many projects, and I no longer trust my washing machine (or myself). It is a hard lesson but one you shall never forget. I think the shawl doesn't look felted at all, though!
i had heard that if you soak it in conditioner that you can help to unfelt it. Soak it and then reblock it.
It is beautiful though
Thanks guys, for the words of encouragement and the compliments! I don't think any amount of conditioner could "unfelt" it, but it really is growing on me as the lace pattern is very subtle now and really shines through when the light hits it. Oh, it's extremely warm too, so that's good! But still, never again will I trust the washing machine with anything but a superwash :)
They mean to spin only -- not wash. I use my washing machine all the time but you never actually agitate the piece unless you want it to felt on purpose. Set the washer to spin so the excess water will be removed. Things dry much more quickly.
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