Mini Tutorial – Felting a Crocheted Hat

You will need:

1. A ball of 100% wool. I like Paton’s 100% Merino Classic
2. 4mm Crochet hook. (with this particular wool)

3. A round plastic form. (to felt shape to. I made mine from the bottom of a plastic food tub)

4. A Knitters Sewing needle.

5. A regular sewing needle
6. Thread matching wool colour.
7. Shiny glamorous button.

This tutorial is for those who already know how to crochet & have a hat pattern to follow. Make sure the pattern works up larger than you want it to end up being as it will shrink considerably during the felting process.

Start to crochet your hat, make sure you leave a long enough end of yarn at the centre point start as you will need it later.

Use a loose long stitch, at least a double crochet stitch, as the stitches need to shrink together & too tight a stitch will stop this happening & very limited felting will occur. I have used treble for this beret.

Finish your hat.


Thread your wool needle onto the long spare end from where you started the piece.


Take your plastic form, thread the needle & yarn through a hole in the centre.


Slide form down yarn.


Tuck form inside main body of hat.

Remove needle & tie yarn securely (several times over)


Put hat inside a pillowcase or lingerie bag.


Throw into the machine on as hot a wash as your machine will do, with a small dash of soap.


Wash several times over to create the desired effect. Once the main shape has been safely formed you can remove the plastic form to finish it off & make sure it is evenly worked. Adding a towel can agitate it further & work up a better finished result.




Thread normal needle with matching thread & secure to inside of the centre hole which should still be just visible.


Poke shank of glam button through hole & stitch securely in place.



As this is a mini beret you will need to attach it to your head some how, so, take a small crocodile clip and stitch to back side of beret at the top.


And the bottom.

News about Next Month

Next month keep an eye out for a series of mini tutorials, seeing as that was the original premise of this blog.

Covering topics from Felting to Covering Buttons to making Kanzashi Flowers.

Felted Crochet - To form or not to form?

Phew! Another busy week. Relly's visiting from abroad, so it was Tourguide Liz for a week! God, you think you have busy life until you have to show people round where you live, then your knackered as hell after day two!
So that put a halt to design and make for 5 days, which was actually abit of a rest! I was eager to get back to it by the end of day 4.
I kept a ball of wool and a crochet hook in my bag for subway trips and got 4 mini beret's worked up and ready for felting. I managed to get hold of and old plastic pot lid which was just the right size for the insides of the berets, so that when they felt down they dont screw up like the first green one did. Although this means I can only felt one at a time (until I get another lid anyway)
The first one twisted slightly, but the second and third turned out well. I didnt put the last two in the tumble dryer, I left them to dry naturally after I had taken the plastic form out of the middle. I pushed the top and bottom apart and gently formed a dome in the top. This has given them a more natural shape, not so forced as the tumble dryed ones. I dont think tumble drying really adds to it. It would only be of use if I was drying larger flatter pieces.

P & S Fabrics is such a great shop!

I found everything I wanted, craftwise, in one store yesterday, so I didnt have to trek all over to find stuff, I got real feltable wool and spent yesterday afternoon crocheting it up, put it in the washer and woke up this morning to find a fab little felted bundle. I was trying for a mini beret, but I dont have anything to keep it flat with at the moment so it folded up and looks like a tennis ball, but I like it like that!
And I got a tatting bobbin, I thought I'd give that a whirl again.
So today is full of crochet, tatting, finishing off some eyemasks.

Feltable wool - pre felting

Paton's classic merino wool, Leaf Green.

Feltable Wool! Yay!

I finaly got some! And it works! Patons Classic Merino Wool. First off is another mini beret in Leaf Green, at the moment its drying/felting abit more in the tumble dryer, but so far it's turned out pretty well.

Vacation problem solving

So I've been away on holiday for the past few weeks, Cyprus for a friends wedding. Whilst away I made a hat for the wedding, I managed to sew on a British Airways plane with out any problems, although sharps aren't allowed in your hand luggage. I took pre cut lengths of thread with me so that I didnt have to take scissors on with me and risk having them confiscated! I'd already covered the base with silk and was stitching on big AB rhinestones in a star burst.
I didnt dare take on my crochet hooks as they are metal and would probably have been taken off me at security.
I didnt have much time to 'make' as we were really busy for most of the 2 weeks, but I did get the hat finished (with minutes to spare!) And I crocheted a 100% wool mini beret and top hat. I think I may have cracked the problem I was having before I went away (see my last blog entry). Im going to try this pattern in the bamboo yarn and see how it turns out later this week:
-chain 4, join, 1 chain.
-dc 8 times round ring, join, 1 chain.
-dc 2 in each stitch, join, 1 chain.
-dc in join st, *dc 1 in nxt st, dc 2 in nxt st* repeat between stars until end, join, 1 chain.
-dc in join st, *dc 1 in nxt st, dc 1 in nxt st, dc 2 in nxt st* repeat between stars until end, join, 1 chain.
-**dc in join st, *dc 1 in nxt st, dc 1 in nxt st, dc 1 in nxt st, dc 2 in nxt st* repeat between single stars until end, join, 1 chain.
- repeat ** row
-repeat ** row
- 1 dc in each st, end.
Whilst doing my holiday washing (there was sooo much!) I washed the mini beret on a hot wash, and it didnt shrink or felt at all! I have done this process several times before with ideal results, but never in this machine, I washed it on 3 different hot wash cycles with no joy, so Im not very happy now.