In Progress: Felted Westie Sweaters

Started another knitting project recently ... this is from a book called Dress Your Dog - Nifty Knits for Classy Canines. One of the designs in the book is for felted sweaters, modeled by a pair of black Scotties.

I thought the sweaters would look sweet on my Westies and the yarn was on sale ... so I started out the first sweater intending it to be for Keli. The pattern includes stitch counts for Medium and Large sizes; Keli is a little big for a Westie, so I followed the instructions for the Large length and width.

It took me a little over a week to do the knitting (I admit I was a little obsessed with finishing) and yesterday I spent several hours working on the felting. I had to do the wet felting by hand, as it seems that my new HE washing machine doesn't agitate enough to felt the fibers very well.

This is my first real felted project (I know -- technically, the term is called "fulling" but the books call it felting and so will I). It turned out rather nice, but I think I will do a little more research on the technique. It was interesting so watch the knitting morph into a semi-solid fabric.

The finished sweater before felting was a little larger than necessary, since the wool is supposed to shrink a bit. All the yarns are 100% wool; the black is Berroco Peruvian and the colors are Cascade 220, and they're all labeled 100% Peruvian Highland Wool.

I left it to dry flat overnight and tried it on Keli this morning to check the sizing. It almost fits -- the belly straps fit and it covers her well from side to side. BUT -- the neck straps are too short and the back length is about 3 spots too long. So the amount of shrinkage from felting wasn't quite as expected.

Penny tried it on next -- the neck straps are just right, but of course, the belly straps and back length are too long. But the good thing about felting is supposed to be that you can cut it without worry of unraveling, right? So I guess I'll be doing some trimming .... maybe I'll need to add some machine felting to the cut edges, too, just to be sure it stays together.

This is definitely a work-in-progress -- and now I need to do a second one for Keli, with a few modifications to the pattern.

Of course, both of them are looking at me cross-eyed for making them try on sweaters in June when it's 80 degrees outside!

See the post - Finished: Felted Westie Sweaters

Ravelry link