I’m posting on the advice of the famed Knit Doctor, Karen Frisa, who is available for consultation at all Stitches events. For me this means two blog posts in three days. I hope she has a remedy for a pulled blog muscle!
At the end of the last post, the knitted churro rug was in the washer. Its fate was unknown. Would it turn out well? Or would all that knitting have been in vain?
And now…read on for the exciting conclusion to our story.
After the first washing, the rug looked good, but it wasn’t felted enough. Back into the washer it went, this time with a bunch of dark towels. I set the water temperature on hot wash/cold rinse instead of hot/hot, because the hot-cold contrast is supposed to shock wool fibers into felting better. I forgot about that the first time around.
The washer finally spun to a stop. The lid took ages to unlock. I pulled out all the towels, trying to avoid looking at the rug. Only when the towels were hung out in the heat of the day, did I go back for the rug.
The wool felted even better during the second washing. Just about perfect! And I discovered a new rule about felting things in the washing machine:
Never wash your felt project with a new, pink beach towel.
I laid the rug on top of a big towel, on the floor. I straightened the edges and the stripes, and then spent about an hour picking pink lint off of it. The pink pills are still surfacing. Maybe they’ll all be gone by the time October rolls around.
It looks great. I’m very, very happy with it.