I take it all back - of course it felts!

I've been blithely insisting for a couple of years now that the wool from my Poll Dorsets doesn't felt (sorry Champagne Bohemian) . Being the silly cow that I am I never really tried very hard. However, the other day I picked up a loosely knitted square that I'd made months ago to see how the thick n thin singles I was making at the time looked when knitted up. I ran it under the hot tap and with a squish of fairy liquid (saved only for yarn work - we use ecover for the dishes *blush*) mashed it around in my hand for a bit. Lo and behold it started to felt! I was so chuffed about this it was daft. I bored my husband rigid for 2 days saying 'Look, it's felted. No, feel it, go on feel it, it's felted, Look, it's felted!' The upshot was that I have some thick n thin singles on the site which aren't shifting so I 'borrowed' some to knit an ear flap hat to see if I could get it to felt. Trouble was I liked it as it was so I knitted another one! I stuck it in the washing machine on a basic 40 degree wash with a pair of jeans and waited. I forgot how scary it is putting yarny things in the washing machine but when I opened the door I was suitably relieved and pretty chuffed at how it came out. This is the unwashed one:





















And this is the one that I put through the wash




















And this is a close up of the felted one:















I really like the fact that you can still see stitch definition and it's gone all fluffy and furry. It needs a bit of work - the ear flaps are a bit small and a bit sticky outy now but I'm thinking of putting a row of single chain crochet round them for a bit of texture and to flatten them down a bit.

All in all I'm really pleased and excited to have something new to do - particularly with the thick n thins which weren't proving too popular on the site. The kids are going back to school next week so I'll have all day to mess about with yarn. Blissola :)

I owe an apology to everyone whose blogs I haven't visited in a while. School hols, feeling poorly etc etc - you know the score lol. Hopefully I'll be firing on all cylinders soon and we can all hunker down for the Autumn session :)

ETA - forgot to say that the pattern I used for the hat was loosely based on this one from Lion Brand. It has a pic of a crochet hat in it but is definitely knitted. It was the closest pattern I could find to match the wpi of the yarn but it still needed adapting :)