My First Felting Project (Part I)

While roaming around on Ravelry a few days ago (most favourite passtime of all), I came across this great pattern for a felted laptop computer case. I've never felted a knitted project before, but have wanted to for ages.

So, like a good girl, I did lots of reading about knitting items for felting.

I had five balls of Plymouth Boku that I bought on sale last year, and knew that it would be perfect for this project. The Boku is 95% wool and 5% silk. Under normal knitting circumstances, I would use a 4.5mm circ needle for this yarn, but when felting, you have to allow for shrinkage. So, a 6.5mm circ it is!
This morning I knitted my swatch ... very important to swatch when felting! Then I put the swatch into a lingerie bag and into the washing machine it went (together with some laundry I had to do).

I checked the swatch every five minutes to see how the felting process was going. After 20mins on a hot wash cycle, my swatch was beautifully felted with just a tiny bit of stitch definition.

The swatch was 20 stitches x 30 rows. The felted swatch was 5.5ins across x 4.1ins top to bottom.

My laptop is 30ins x 22ins (circumferences). Therefore, I will be casting on 110 stitches this evening!

This should be a fairly quick knit because I'll be knitting it in the round (knit one row, purl the next) for 82 rows, then casting off half the stitches and doing some decreasing for 32 rows for the flap.

Then I sew the bottom, felt the cover and VOILA! One drop dead gorgeous laptop cover! My laptop will be the envy of the neighbourhood HEHEHEH!