One of the things I do to to deal with my grief is stay busy! 🙂 And, knitting has been a great gift for that! And, those who know my in real life know about my obsession of purses – but I never pay very much for them or it’s no fun!
So, I have seen some CUTE felted bags out there – but I have no idea how to begin! If I wanted to start cheap – ie get the products from JoAnns or Michaels – what yarn do I buy? Any tricks? I’d be very grateful if you would leave a comment about how to get started with felting – but cheaply! I don’t want to invest too much unless I know I like it. 🙂
Try the Sophie bag from Mags Knits. Have you been there? Takes only one bag of Cascade 220. Should be an $8 bag, and it’s cute too.
Hi Amy,
Here is a list of free bag patterns from faery crafty’s blog:
http://faerycrafty.blogdrive.com/archive/259.html
for cheap yarn – paton’s classic merino is inexpensive, so is brown sheep worsted. Also check out knit picks new yarns – very reasonable – almost any 100% animal fiber will felt.
HTH!
hey felting is super fun! i picked it up fast… my best advice is get the wool from elann.com or knitpicks.com they are cheap but good stuff! if you go to blacksheepbags.com they have a free felted bag patter that is really easy…. and it looks good too!
have fun!
I love felting with Cascade 220. I haven’t felted with any of the wool from elann.com but I know it’s very reasonably priced. Good luck!
I just needed to connect… praying for you and the boys… feeling better today? Jason getting better? oxoxo ma
Hi Amy,
I have only done felted slippers and they were done with Brown Sheep wool and are wonderful! You have to make sure you have 100% wool for it to truly felt! Brown Sheep probably costs a little more than what you might find at Michael’s but it is really pretty cheap and because it has a little bit of mohair in it the dye really has beautiful deep tone colors. Make sure whatever you buy that you don’t get machine washable yarn because that is made so it will NOT felt!! Even if you wanted to design something on your own you could, just remember that it will shrink quite a bit. I bet you can find a lot of info on felting on the web. Theresa
Lamb’s Pride wool is an inexpensive wool to use. My pink, purple and Lime purse are knit with it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/needlewerks/feltedbag.jpg
There are tons of free patterns online.
Booga bag is one and easy to knit. Google it…
🙂
When you felt you need as close to 100% wool as you can get. You also cannot felt superwash wool.
Cascade 220 is good felting wool. Arcania Nature Wool is good felting wool.
Light colored yarns (light yellows, whites, light pinks, etc) are hard to felt and take more time because they have been bleached. The bleach damages the fibers so it is harder to make them do what you want. Keep that in mind if you want to knit a white and blue felted bag; you will have to felt the white yarn longer and harder so the bag will probably not work out the way you have in mind.
That’s what I know about felting.
Hi Amy ,
Thought I’d post to you on the cheapest all-wool sources that I”ve found … knitpicks.com has really cheap yarn (cheaper than cascade 220) if you want to buy enough for several projects … and I just saw a Bernat all-wool yarn at my local hobby lobby that was pretty cheap, too, but it only came in somewhat boring colors. If you want to try dyeing, you can buy Lion Fisherman’s Wool, dye it, then felt it! 🙂 Take care, and hope you’re feeling better.