Surprise Felting Result

I live in a beach tourism hub where tourists severely outnumber locals during Spring Break month. Maybe you wonder, what does this have to do with felting? Well, at this time of year, it's pointless to casually go out and do errands because traffic is at a standstill both directions. So this weekend I had my own Felting Festival right here. I had everything I needed: wool, crochet hook, hot water, soap, me, and a possibly bored kid/assistant. I rounded up every yarn I could find with a minimum of 50% wool content, to see which ones felt and how. Of course 75% or 100% wool is ideal, so with only 50% wool all bets are off and I doubted that Classic Elite Miracle (50/50 alpaca/tencel) would felt at all. I googled it and found no mention of felting.

As you can see from the pre-and post-felting photos, it THOROUGHLY felts. See how the picots melted away into zero stitch definition? Not only that, I might like the yarn even better felted! It heightens the sheen (which the photo doesn't convey well), I love touching it, and I love the surface--it's a luxuriant kind of boucle. (I love boucle fabric but hate crocheting most boucle yarns.)

This blog entry is dedicated to my felting mentor, Marty Miller!