Felting Experiment #2 – Lang Yarns Mohair Luxe

After my last felting experiment, I started wondering what it would be like to felt the fine wisps of mohair. I have 3 different batches of mohair in my stash, and have yet to find a use for them. Because my skin is so easily irritated by wool, I don’t really want to knit any garments that will be close to my skin with them, so they’re just kind of sitting there until I can figure out what to do with them.

Poking around a bit on Google, I found one post that explained that using any sort of wool blend will not do well in felting. However, a dig around on Ravelry produced two projects with the keyword “felt” for this particular mohair I had in mind, and so I figured I’d try it anyway, despite its being a blend of mohair and silk.

Well, it’s true. After a vigorous wash in amongst a bunch of towels, and a good 1.5-2 hours in the dryer, the swatch I knit is barely felted. In fact you can barely tell the difference between the two photos (see below). It definitely does feel much softer, however. So this would work well for a sweater I accidentally knit too large, perhaps, or maybe as a lining to something, but otherwise it was a failure. As a felt? Not at all what I had imagined.

Next up: di.Vé Mohair Kiss. This one is 95% wool & mohair, so perhaps it’ll give me a result closer to what I was hoping for.

Till next time!