Mistake or Miracle Fulling Your Knitted Garments

I enjoyed and learned from this article on Knitter’s Review and I hope you find it informative too. Remember when your favorite sweater got lost in a load of laundry, and the next time you saw it, it had shrunk into a miniature, blanket-textured doggy sweater?
The Felt Phenomenon
There’s a name for this phenomenon: felting. And if you plan ahead, you can use the very same disastrous process as a design tool to create extraordinary results. The process of felting raw fibers has been used for centuries. But felting knitwear (which is called “fulling”) didn’t hit the mainstream Western knitting community until the mid 1980s. Felting expands and tightens fiber at the same time, essentially transforming the look and feel of most knitted garments. Today, several talented designers — especially Nancy Lindberg and Suzanne Pufpaff — specialize in creating patterns for this medium. If you don’t believe it’s possible to turn a huge, floppy, washcloth-like knitted item into a strong, structured hat or pair of weather-resistant mittens, you must try felting.

Read all about felting your knits and crochets.

More About Felting

The Physics of Felting

How to Felt in Six Easy Steps

Tips and Tricks

Felting with Brown Sheep Yarns

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Scandinavia is known for its sweaters, which usually include colorwork and are worked in muted colors of wool yarn. They’re nothing if not traditional, so giving that garment a modern twist is a fun approach.

Marita Clementz said in her book Knit Modern Scandi Sweaters that she wanted bolder, more colorful designs inspired by nature.

The book opens with a brief overview of needed supplies (plus the yarn she used to make her sweaters, which may be difficult to find in other countries), a discussion of yarn weigh, increasing or decreasing evenly across a project, color dominance, sizing and ease and general sweater construction. All of the garments are worked in the round from the top down, and several include short rows at the neck. She also talks about reading and adjusting charts.

The patterns follow, with lots of pictures and a large copy of the chart. Some of my favorites include Anemone, covered all over with large flowers that remind me of the 1960s; Lofoten, which features colorwork diamonds and is shown in three different colorways with three neckline options; and the cheerful zig-zagged Svalbard, inspired by the mountains and midnight sun of the island of Spitsbergen. I’m not finding the book on Ravelry as I write this but you can see some of the patterns in the preview on Amazon, linked above or the publisher’s website, linked below.

There are lots of floral motifs and geometric designs, and the patterns don’t do a ton of hand holding, so it would be good if you’ve knit a few sweaters before you try these. The skill ratings are on a scale of one to five: six are rated three, four are four and two are level five. (None are rated one or two.)

All the designs have seven sizes, which range in chest circumference from 34 to 53 inches, or 85 to 133 cm. Garments are shown on young adults and men and women (all the author’s family I think).

This book is a lot of fun if you like bold, colorful designs and cozy sweaters with a Scandinavian flair.

About the book: 128 pages, paperback, 12 patterns. Published 2025 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.

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