Some people dance the night away, but that wouldn't be me. With the arrival of Lisa Cruse at Struan Farm recently it was time to take the bull by the horns and felt her five knitted hats designs that I'd finished knitting under expert supervision. Actually, the technical term is "fulling," but most people would have no idea what this means so let's stick to the generic term everyone understands.
The hats were put into zipped pillow cases in the washing machine with a bit of soap powder (or dish detergent). Using a hot water wash, we stopped the machine before it started to spin, about eight minutes initially until they started to felt, progressively less time as they felted, testing the degree of felting as well as fit. (You do get a bit wet!)
Once the hats were felted and fit me (and this took some time with our washer), we removed them and squeezed excess water out by walking on them between towels on the kitchen floor.
Next came the real magic, at least for me. Lisa showed me how to shape the hats over bowls and plates put atop jars to dry. She pulled them into shape, smoothing any creases, making sure that the bowl or plate used was the right size. This makes a huge difference to the finished hat.
Here's Nellie Crush:
Here's Tatum Toque:
Here's Amy Beret:
Piper Beret:
And last but not least that grand dame of them all, Vivian:
They were left to dry overnight over tea towels on the bench, but in the morning I put them together as a group on the breakfast table:
You can pretty much see those that were dried over plates vs. bowls, can't you? And I rather liked the idea of breakfasting with Nellie, Vivian, Amy, Piper and Tatum! Next comes embellishment......
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