Monday, November 9, 2009

OOPS


This is the result of washing a woolen cardigan that had a few small moth holes. Luckily I was experimenting with trying to felt it, using the washing machine, and was not just washing my, quite expensive, cardigan for future use.
I have been interested in felting for a while and have been looking at different instructions about how to do it. But I was not sure if this cardigan would felt, the washing instructions advised care, so I thought it would possibly felt. It did not felt much but the moth holes sure had an effect.
I have trouble with the idea of felting in the washing machine, possibly with all felting, as we are in a very long drought and water needs to be saved, not used for felting. Felting seems to use a lot of water. The washing machine is set up so that the water is going onto the garden, using specially devised, plant friendly washing liquid, but felting seems an extravagance, not like ordinary washing, which is necessary.
I am studying Textiles and Design at RMIT and one of my subjects is Dyeing and it also uses a lot of water - not good in our current situation. We are being encouraged to to use only 150 litres of water per household, per day, and these textile techniques make that difficult. So I may have to leave some of my experimenting till the drought breaks, if it ever does. It has been going for about 13 or 14 years now, so I won't hold my breath waiting for a lot of rain.

2 comments:

parlance said...

Maybe a greywater cleaning unit would be worth investigating. Should only cost a couple of thousand dollars, lol.

Mary said...

Good idea, maybe I'll be able to use it for my work and then put it on the garden!! Recycle AND reuse. Will have to be careful with the mordants though.