Even MORE needle felting!

I'm so thrilled with my new trick of needle felting-finishing knitted items, I can't contain myself, I have to tell you all about it.

Here, you can see me needle felting the yarn-end into the brim of a knitted hat. It is worked from the brim to the top - just a plain jane rolled brim. I never know what to do with the tail because a rolled brim doesn't have a right side and a wrong side - both sides are "right side" sides.

In the past, I've worked the tail up into the crown of the hat, but that isn't necessary any more, not since I've figured out this needle felting trick.


With the needle in place, so you can see where the felted bit is located - -
Needle removed - - Gone! This hat is knitted out of Encore, a really nice wool blend. My daughter just loves these hats.

In the series of photos, below, you can see me needle felting a wayward thrum back into place

Before the needle - - see how it pokes out?

During the process - -

After. How nice.
You know, you can do the same thing with pulls or snags - just work the snag to the wrong side of the item and felt it in place.

I'm obsessed.


In order to work with the pokey needles on a mitten, without poking myself or needle felting the mitten closed, I stuffed it with the bags from my onions and oranges.






Unless you give this a try, you'll have no idea how handy this method is for finishing your knitting. Are you put off by the imagined cost of needle-felting needles? Have you checked the price? My LYS sells them for less than a dollar a piece, and for finishing projects, you'll only need one, or two if you should choose to strap them together. These little doozeys are REALLY inexpensive. Try it!

3 comments:

Pensguys said...

You convinced me in your last post about it...I'm just waiting for my LYS to get some in.

Susan Luni said...

Handy. A little off topic, but have you seen stitchingnut's tea cozy on Ravelry? You can't miss it. It's the one with 430+ favs.
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/stitchingnut/a-little-felt-tea-farm-tea-cozy
It's astounding.

Romi said...

Very cool! And I have needles too. :)