Comments on: Felting Garter Stitch http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/459 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:16:31 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: lucia http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/459/comment-page-1#comment-1842 lucia Fri, 04 Nov 2005 03:45:51 +0000 http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/?p=459#comment-1842 Thanks for the comment. I think this is definitely worth testing. My main concern when I wrote the article was that someone wanted to just follow a pattern for stockinette, substitute garter stitch, and then felt. I think garter stitch really needs to be tested! Thanks for the comment. I think this is definitely worth testing. My main concern when I wrote the article was that someone wanted to just follow a pattern for stockinette, substitute garter stitch, and then felt. I think garter stitch really needs to be tested!

]]> By: Angela http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/459/comment-page-1#comment-1838 Angela Fri, 04 Nov 2005 00:20:51 +0000 http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/?p=459#comment-1838 I had a similar surprise when felting a pair of garter stitch slippers, but I think I can add a bit of insight to these musings. The slipper design had a loooong piece of garter stitch, in sort of a strap shape, before sewing up. To test which way worked better, I felted one slipper without assembling it first, and sewed up the other before felting. The unsewn slipper's long strap got much longer, far more than the same part did in the assembled slipper. Admittedly, that bit of anatomy didn't shrink lengthwise as much as I would expect from stockinette, but at least it didn't stretch larger. My theory is that the assembled slipper stabilized the fabric by constraining it during the wash, so that no parts could get pulled too far away from the other parts. Contrariwise, the unassembled slipper had the long strap that wandered about, getting tangled in the other wash objects and being pulled away from the slipper body, even as the fibers were trying to contract. I wonder if the excessive lengthening is due not (entirely) because of the garter stitch pattern, but also because of the free-spirited strap being pulled longer during the wash. I didn't put the slippers into a bag before felting, so that's my next test. If I confine the slipper to its own space and don't allow it to move around so much, will the strap avoid the pulling and lengthening? Time will tell. Hope this helps. --angela I had a similar surprise when felting a pair of garter stitch slippers, but I think I can add a bit of insight to these musings. The slipper design had a loooong piece of garter stitch, in sort of a strap shape, before sewing up. To test which way worked better, I felted one slipper without assembling it first, and sewed up the other before felting. The unsewn slipper’s long strap got much longer, far more than the same part did in the assembled slipper. Admittedly, that bit of anatomy didn’t shrink lengthwise as much as I would expect from stockinette, but at least it didn’t stretch larger.

My theory is that the assembled slipper stabilized the fabric by constraining it during the wash, so that no parts could get pulled too far away from the other parts. Contrariwise, the unassembled slipper had the long strap that wandered about, getting tangled in the other wash objects and being pulled away from the slipper body, even as the fibers were trying to contract.

I wonder if the excessive lengthening is due not (entirely) because of the garter stitch pattern, but also because of the free-spirited strap being pulled longer during the wash. I didn’t put the slippers into a bag before felting, so that’s my next test. If I confine the slipper to its own space and don’t allow it to move around so much, will the strap avoid the pulling and lengthening?

Time will tell. Hope this helps. –angela

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