Shibori Knitting

Melissa and I attend the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore nearly every year in March. The first year we went together, a few years ago, I was a new knitter. I had barely mastered knit and purl.

As we browsed each booth, we both spotted felted scarves with interesting 3 dimensional shapes. We couldn't get them out of our heads and I was constantly on the lookout for them each time I went to a craft fair. I just couldn't wrap my head around how they were made!

Cut to the MDSW festival 2005.

After spending the entire day buying yarn and touching and seeing and smelling, I was pooped. But I hadn't yet made it to the indoor pavillion.

I *had* to go check it out. So after some ice cream to revive the shopping spirit, I popped in "just to see". The first booth I stopped at had these little kits... something about them made me stop in my tracks... That was IT! It was EXACTLY what I was looking for!

Included in the kit were instructions for Shibori Knitting and little plastic balls to use during the felting process. I quickly snatched up the kit and paid for it while they were packing up their booth. I couldn't believe I was thisclose to missing out on it!!

While I paid, I chatted with the lady running the booth, she got a kick out of my Yarn Ho tshirt and I was telling her how excited I was to try out this new felting thing. (I had no idea what it was called at the time.)

As soon as I got home I sorted through my new purchases and immediately started to read up on the process. It is fairly straightforward but to my chagrin, required a LOT of stockenette knitting on really small needles (we're talking size 2s and 3s). Ugh. I knew it would take forever for me to get a piece long enough to experiment, so away the kit went into the bottom of my knitting basket.

Cut to last week.

Danielle emailed me to get together for dinner and some knitting. She had recently purhcased a KNITTING MACHINE! The lightbulb in my head went off and I dug through my (ever growing) knitting basket and pulled out the kit.

We spent Saturday night knitting, chatting and giggling over the knitting machine. In about 15 minutes I had an 8" x 64" long piece of olive green stockenette. I was DELIGHTED! I set to work rubberbanding all the little plastic balls to the fabric.

This is what it looked like when I was done:

Pretty weird, huh?

The next night I had a little time and threw it in the washing machine to felt. I had no idea if it would even work. But it DID! And I am SO impressed! Check it out:

I used 1 ball of Rowan 4-ply and after felting, it shrunk to about 3" x 25". Not quite long enough for a scarf... 2 balls would have been perfect (there's a joke in there, but I am just going to let it be.)

I definitely see more experimentation with Shibori Knitting in my future and have started looking into a knitting machine of my own.  If you have never heard of this technique/method, the Fall 05 issue of Interweave Knits has an article about it and is really quite interesting.

Comments

[megan]

Oh my goodness! That looks just adorable. :)

[knitting maven]

I love to go to knitting shows. I have gone to the NY one and also the Atlantic City one. I love your scarf. The balls really made it 3 dimensional. I really need to look into that yarn and felting a scarf. I have only felted hats.

[Diana]

Coo-WELL! How do you get the little plastic balls out before you felt? Or after you felt? Or do they stay in?? Help!

I smell a TW class!!!

[Terry]

I also go to the ACC Craft Show with my friend who is also named Melissa! What a coindidence!

I saw those scarves too, but I didn't know what the technique was called. I'd love to try it though.

I've done a search on the web, but came up with nothing. By any chance, is there a company website for those little plastic balls, or do you remember the vendor at MDSW who sold them to you?

Thanks-
Terry

[Sonya]

I L-O-V-E IT! That is the coolest...can it be accomplished without a knitting machine?

[Angela]

That is gorgeous. Is it possible to find out how to purchase a kit for myself? Thanks.

[Justine]

Can you tell me what the company was called that had the Shibori kits? I would love to get one and experiment with it for Christmas.

Thank you so much!

[Ceci]

I am DESPERATE. i must know how you did this! i'm a bit of a new knitter, but these fascinate me! i would buy the kit in a hot second. more info. now. :D

[Ceci]

more specifically, i'm interested in how big your scarf was BEFORE felting and what size of stuff i would be able to use. I'm thinking about doing this on my own. are ping pong balls too big? smaller?