I have sweaters that won't felt!

[Jes'sBeth]

I'm making some recycled longies from old sweaters and for the life of me I can't get 2 sweaters to felt! They both say 100% wool. One is a really lovely, soft... wine red merino wool and I swear that it's the same size and feel as when it went into the hot wash with soap 3 wash cycles ago!!!!! :

Help me out here! I'm sure if these sweaters were in my wardrobe I'd be thrilled that I couldn't kill them but I'm trying to shrink them down and get them to thicken up and felt for me. What am I doing wrong?

I'm using really hot water and detergent I've run it through the wash 3 times and it's in the dryer for the 3rd time now. It's maybe minimally smaller than it started out. Do I just keep washing it or what? Are some wool sweaters impossible to felt? If so, why don't we all wear those ones?!?

[Kari_mom]

Some wool has been treated to be machine washable without felting. It is sometimes called superwash wool, there are other brands. I bet that is what you've run into. How frustrating for you!

[Jes'sBeth]

Yeah, my mom knits our soakers out of superwash sock wool. They work great and the wool is quite cheap...

I figured I was fine since the tags on the sweaters say to hand wash only! stupid sweaters!

I'm going to wash the life out of them even if only out of spite! I am doing this right though... (okay I know I'm doing it right. The other sweaters felted just fine and they were in the initial wash. One other sweater went through twice and was ready to go but the last 2 are just making me I really want that merino one to felt!)

[LeosMama]

maybe you could give up on the felting and just do lanolin and make them day covers?
sorry, just a thought.

[amberthesugarcat]

I had the same problem with one sweater, and I felted it finally by doing a hot wash, then a cold wash then throwing it in the dryer on hot. I have heard it is going from hot to cold to hot with agitation that really felts wool.

I sometimes don't felt my wool anyway because I want it to be a thinner cover.

[Jes'sBeth]

okay I'm trying the hot/cold/hot dry thing now!

I've been thinking about just letting them go unfelted but I really think they're too thin to be very effective I'll give it one more go. I thought of boiling them too to see if extreme heat would help them to felt but I haven't quite gotten that desperate yet. I'm down to 2 that won't felt. The red one finally started shrinking (in fact, it shrank down to the PERFECT size to fit me! so now I have a really nice sweater that fits like a glove! Hey, it was only $5! I'm actually wearing it today!)

I'll report back if the hot/cold/ hot dry thing works.

[marasmum]

From what I have read, felting is affected by AGITATION more than temperature. For instance, you can wash a wool cover or soaker in hot water just as long as you don't wring it out. I have had extremely good luck felting sweaters when I use the heavy duty setting on my washer - it really agitates the heck out of the clothing!

HTH!
Laura

[onediaperinmama]

Okay not reading responses so sorry if this has already been said, but if you've taken the steps to felt it and it's not felting, chances are it will still work well for a cover. Felting is less important than the actual make up of the wool fibers - seriously! Felting helps, but I used wool jersey and wool interlock totally UNFELTED to make wool pants and they worked just fine. Granted, they did felt a little over time around the bottom, thighs and knees where the fibers rubbed together or got rubbed on the floor during crawling/sitting, but the experiment still showed that the wool worked as a cover without the initial felting process

[marasmum]

Originally Posted by Moonbucket

... but the experiment still showed that the wool worked as a cover without the initial felting process

Very good to know! Thanks for the info.

[Jes'sBeth]

They're definatly wool (the tags are still there) and definatly not felting. I'm concerned that they're a bit thin on they're own so I think I'll use the 2 sweaters left and make a 2 layer pair of longies that are reversible. That way I'll get them a bit thicker but will still be able to use them. They're much thinner than our hand knit soakers which are really about as thin as I feel comfortable with.

I think it's really cool that you can get a baby to do their own felting of their longies by letting them crawl around! talk about water conservation!

[Ruthla]

I was going to suggest that if they won't felt and seem too thin to make good covers, then just use 2 layers instead. Since they shrink when they felt, there should be enough wool for 2 layers if it won't felt- or use double layers in the diaper area and single layers through the legs if you don't have quite enough.