I am making some mittens for the Afghans for Afghans charity. I have an old book 'A Time to Knit Mittens' by Sandy Baas & Marty Godlowsk' that was published in 1985. I believe this in one of the books that I bought at a yard sale years ago. It has a great pattern for easy worsted mittens, as well as other yarn weights. I want to felt them & make 3-4 different sizes. I like making them with the gored thumb rather than the slot thumb because they are interchangeable then.
I made these in the men's size & then threw them into the washer for a complete cycle using hot water, then a cold rinse , & drying flat. I have four blue dryer balls that I bought from Walmart to use for felting smaller items, in the machine. I put them in with the mittens so they would have something to beat them up a little bit, & help them felt. I didn't want to felt them too much because I didn't want the ribbing to completely flatten out & lose it's elasticity. It did flatten out some but not so much that they won't stay on. The mittens felted down to 6" in the hand from 7.2" when I started. So, they were a men's medium & now are a child's medium.
I have lots of felt that I thought I would try to make some cute designs with & hand stitch them to the mitten. We will see if I get up that much motivation!!
Felting in a front loader presents problems sometimes. The door locks so you can't take the item out & check without going through a whole turning off & on, spinning the selector on the washer, waiting for it to unlock, etc. So I don't bother with it. Size is not critical in mittens. There is always someone that they will fit.
P.S.
The fish died.
