Felting In A Front Loader

I've recently became the proud owner of a front load washer and dryer set, I absolutlly love my new machines they are wonderful for washing clothes which is there intended purpose. However a secondary purpose for a washing machine to a knitter is felting and felting in a front loader is quite a bit different then a regular washer.

I learned a hard lesson when I felted my first project which was mittens, they felted closed and I had to spend an hour opening them back up. What I learned is that because the front loaders have a spin agitation vs. a back and forth agitation the cetrifical forces in the front loader aided in felting closed my mitten. I think some experimentation with spinning speed is needed. I plan to spend this weekend figuring out how to sucessfully felt in my front loader!

Well....

Okay, beacuse Laura has read this blog and I feel the need to explain what happened to the wedding present knitting project (only eight months ago) and because I feel comfortable with the fact that Laura will more then likely laugh at this, I'm going to admit to the calamity! I was attempting to knit a neat felted bag of blue for my friend that loves blue and knitting. After knitting the sack protion of the bag I tossed it in the washer to felt and when I took it out found that it had shrunk WAAYYYY more then anticipated. Yes I know I should have knitted a test swatch, but I'm too much of and engineer to do that! Anyrate what I got was an oblong bowl looking thing and thought well I'll give it to her anyway maybe she'll find a use for it and I filled it with money I figured at the very least she'd laugh at it and say "what the heck is this" which would then be followed by "yeah money." And becasue I havn't yet learned to enjoy my knitting desasters I took no pictures.

Spinning!!!!!

It's very fun, here's a picture of my first pound of wool in the process of being spun. I made my own bottom whirl spindle and is spins really nice but it's a bit heavy. I now have a top whirl that I aquired from my mother-in-law who bought all the stuff for spinning but never had the time to actually learn. I'm addicted now!