Felting Crochet: Important Information.

It's important to remember that when crochet is felted is shrinks more side-to-side than it does from top to bottom.

For example, here is a picture of a swatch made of two strands worsted weight (8mm hook) 10 stitches by 10 rows.. It measures 5'' across and 4" tall (fig. 1).

fig. 1

After felting, it measures 3"x3"; a perfect square. This means that it shrunk by 25% top to bottom and 40% side to side (fig. 2). (The second to last swatch in the picture below). 

fig. 2

The last three swatches on the right are all 10 stitch-by-10 row swatches that were orginally 5"x 4" in dimension. They consistently felted to 3"x3" squares using several types of worsted yarns (double stranded) on an 8mm hook. 

It's always good to do a swatch for any crochet pattern you use. It's doubly important when felting. One might assume crochet felt the same and as a knit product, but in fact knit tends to shrink more top to bottom, the reverse of crochet. Keep this in mind as you dream up your next felting project. I find when working in the round, I average the two measurements and expect around 30% shrinkage as a rule.

I hope you find this information helpful. I wished I'd made swatches in the past. It would have prevented a few felting disasters! Please add to the comment section if you have more helpful information about felting crochet. So much of the information available online about felting relates to knitting, leaving us hookers guessing.

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