Felted bowls

October 8th  

Drops Eskimo felting wool with a 8mm hook

So I have had this yarn in my stash for a while as I am a little bit in love with wool for felting.  In fact I love the whole idea of felting that a good friend sent me on a wet felting course for my birthday some years ago with the wonderful Gillian Harris, when she used to work from a colourful shed in her garden, before the Fluffatoriam was born.  What?!?! you have not heard of the Fluffotoriam, you are missing out, pop over and see all her colourful goodness and amazing creativity that she is. Click on link here



But to be honest, despite buying all the kit for wet felting it has sat under the spare bedroom bed, gathering dust and increasing my guilt feeling of neglecting it.  So I thought it time to start on felting by crocheting first to re connect me with the texture I enjoy so much.  My favourite slippers to don on at this time of year, when the wet rot and chill begin to set in are a are knitted pair of  felted ones, I'll share the pattern soon.  I digress, onto these bowls.

I had spotted a fantastic set of melamine nesting bowls in vivid primary colours and it began me thinking about making some in wool.  this is my first attempt and as I had only green was not able to re create my own rainbow effect of nesting bowls, but you have to start somewhere, right?




Crocheted bowl before hot water felting

I used a very quick basic pattern for the above bowl and just adapted it for larger and smaller sizes.  It was all a bit of a guessing game, but for the basic bowl, the pattern was:

• Make a magic circle and chain 3
• ROW 1:  12 dc into the ring, sl st into the 3rd chain and then pull the magic ring tight (you should have 12 stitches)
• ROW 2:  ch 3 and dc x2 into each stitch, sl st into 3rd chain (24 stitches in total)
• ROW 3:  ch 3 *dc into first and second st, then dc x2 into third stitch* continue in this pattern between the * till the row is complete, sl st into 3rd chain (32 stitches in total)
• ROW 4:  as row 3 (42 stiches in total)
• ROWS 5-8:  dc into each stitch
• ROW 9:  ch 1 then sc around until the end of the row.  sl st into the ch 1

Your bowl is now ready for hot water felting. ♥

Failed attempt at felting by hand

I tried boiling some water and using fairy washing up liquid but failed miserably, although I did succeed in really hurting my hands with the hot water, picture me whining "oh, oh, oh" and hopping up and down whilst still trying to felt by hand.  It was a messy sight!  It didn't take me long to realise this was futile, so I resorted to the washing machine.  I should have known better as this is how I felt my slippers, but thought a small bowl, surely felting by hand would be OK...

Various crocheted bowl sizes

Crocheted bowls ready for the washing machine

So out came the delicate bag and in popped the crocheted bowls.  I set the machine on at 60 degrees and waited the hour or so for the programme to finish.  Of course it worked and the bowls had shrunk somewhat in size and had produced a lovely thick texture.  They had felted well.

Felted bowls left to dry on upturned vessels
found randomly in the kitchen

I wanted bowls and so placed each one on various vessels that I pulled out from different cupboards to try and find the right size for each bowl.  This felting business is not an exact science in my household and no two bowls were the same size.  Here I left the bowls in this position until completely dried out, so that they would hold their new and forced shape.  In my case this was 3 days.

The bowls are not the same height,
but I did manage to get them to nestle within each other

Autumnal and ready for Halloween later in the month

Autumn sun streaming in through the windows on the filled bowls

I have had such fun making these that I now need to put in an order for bright colours of felting wool and make a whole range!  The Drops Eskimo yarn was easy to use and these bowls crocheted up in less than half an hour each.  Easy TV crocheting! I think a bowl filled with little treats would make lovely thank you gifts too...

♥ What are you crafting/making these days

as the nights draw in? ♥