Fulling- another method of felting

Throwing another one out there! Fulling is a fun method of felting, in which you first knit, loom-knit, crochet, or weave (or even nal-binding) an item, then process it, with wet felting. Fulling means you can make complicated shapes, like sweaters or slippers, with a bit more precision of shape, then wet felt it in a washer , and even throw it in the dryer, to get your finished product. For example, a few years ago, I made a (crudely formed, I'll admit) muff, to warm my hands, when I'm not needing them for anything and don't want to wear gloves or mittens - like when I'm a passenger in a car that someone else is controlling the heat in!

First, I loom-knitted a long tube, 2.5 times the length I wanted for the finished product. Then, I filled both ends to almost meet, in the interior, creating a way to needle felt some divisions, inside - making pockets for things like lip balm, a pocket knife, money, id, etc. Once I had everything all lined up the way I wanted it, and my pocket dividers needle felted, I tucked some junk-mail bits of plastic into the pockets, to keep them from matting closed, and threw it into the washing making, on the hot water setting, and ran it (as well as the very similar one my dil made) a few times, then dried them on the hot setting.

I don't think mine is exactly pretty (but, it's a prototype, lol) - but it's very effective at both keeping my hands warm, and discreetly tucking away items I want to have handy. Hubs and I have used it as a 'love muff' for holding hands in the cold, too.

Fulling can also be done with premade items, as long as they've not been treated to make them washable. You can even cut them up, stitch or needle-felt them back together to make other things, then full them. Or, you can unravel them, use the yarn to make something else, then full that! I love the versatility of wool!!!

I'm interested in this technique, particularly as it applies to pre-made items I might find somewhere, such as in a thrift store.  What % shrinkage do you count on when washing it to achieve the wet felting?  Does this vary depending on the type of wool, or the type of fabric?

Oh, and you should post a pic of your prototype hand muff  : )  

If you have them, or if you attempt a second project of this kind, definitely post "before" pics of the woven (or knitted, or whatever) product, and "after" pics of the same piece as it comes out of the dryer.  That would surely be most illuminating.

Hi, Matthew! The difficulty in pics of this one, is that is solid black, so doesn't lend itself to details. At all. I've tried, because my mom was curious, too. At the time that I made it, I had no affordable sources for decent roving, or I'd likely have just used a simple wet felting method, because that's more where my interest lies. I also didn't have a pattern, and just guessed and eyeballed my way through it. Maybe I'll see if I can sketch an illustration of it... hmmm... it's been a long time, since I've done any drawing.

Now, I have goats that produce an angora wool, and I'm a total beginner to spinning, so my first wool harvest will much more likely/realistically be employed in a wet felted version. But, I'm sure I'll be working on my spinning, too. Time will tell.