I believe I've expounded several times in the blog on my love of felting projects. So it goes without saying I was excited when I found a (very simple) pattern online for a felted bathmat/kitchen mat.
I used some sunny pinks and yellows and oranges and purples. It knitted up quickly and I could hardly wait to see how it would look in my kitchen. Below is a pre-felting shot of the rug after I finished knitting it.
The only problem was that I didn't have immediate access to a washer to felt it. Not usually a problem, I've felted lots of stuff by hand. Once, when I was working on a show away from home, I felted a project in the hotpot I had set up in my hotel room. God, I'm such a dork.
Anyway, the trouble is the bigger the project is, the harder it is to felt it by hand. And this rug was pretty big.
The thing is, if I would've just been patient I would've had access to a washing machine and it wouldn't have been a problem. But I am an impatient jerk. And I get too excited for the finished product - especially the finished felted product.
I had heard that some people actually prefer to do their felting in a big pot on a stove, but I'd never really had much experience with that. I just happen to have a giant pot because I like to do canning, as well (of course), so I popped the rug into the pot with some water and set it to boil.
And before long, I realized that the dye had begun to run and leech out of most of the yarns. What I had hoped and dreamed would be a brightly colored multi-striped mat, turned into a drab, two-tone peach and mauve POS.
And I hate it. But I'm stubborn and I like to get into fights with inanimate objects. I enjoy treating mishaps as if they were actually signs that the universe hates me, and therefore I refuse to do the logical thing and throw the POS out and start over. Because that would be admitting defeat, you see. And I will not do that.
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