Before And After Shots

"What's felting," customers at the store sometimes ask. If you've ever wondered that or what felting does to a knitted product, these before and after shots tell all.

Fred commented when taking these before-felting pictures

that the hat looked like a bucket. Guess that's why Bonne Marie Burns calls it the Felted Bucket Hat.

Even though mine is yet undecorated,

the high fashion of this knit is quite apparent. I like it.

This one, I knit with Ella Rae Classic wool and it took about 10 minutes in the washing machine to felt to size. Having knit five of these now, I should have the felting times down pat. But amazing as it might sound, the colour, so the dye in the wool, seemed to play a role in determining felting time. The two black hats took the longest to felt.

Bonnie Marie's pattern has some interesting construction features. Setting those aside,the hat has a common number of cast on stitches for hats knit with Knitting Worsted yarn. The needle size however is a full, four sizes bigger. All the yarns I've used would normally be knit on a 4 1/2 mm needle. The Felted Bucket Hat is knit with 6 1/2mm.

That suggests to me that I could take any pattern, used a yarn that felts, up the needles by four sizes and felt a garment to fit. Something to try with another hat style.

Wearing the 'before felted' hat made me feel like a kid playing dress up in adult clothing. The 'after-felting' hat is a grown-up hat that makes a high-end fashion statement. Not bad for a couple of evenings of knitting.