Kiki Mariko 2 finished

After multiple trips through the washer and dryer, my second Kiki Mariko rug is finished.

As you can see from the picture at the top, it is a little bit wonky. The felting came out a little bit unevenly, but I think I’m going to say that just adds character.  And this is a rug for us to rub our feet on when we come in from outside, so perfection is not required. It is really soft and dense and squishy, all that a rug should be.

And it used up nine skeins of bulky yarn, making a nice dent in the excessive yarn stash!

It amazes me how much felting shrinks and tightens yarn.  It is almost a third shorted than it started.  This is what it looked like before it went into the wash the first time:

(It wasn’t as distorted as it appeared in the photo – the flare is an optical illusion due to the angle I took the pic from.)

I felted it as a tube, putting a cotton line through the ends to tighten them and reduce the ruffling that can happen at the edge of felted projects.

It worked better at one end than the other, but trimming took care of some of that later.

After four washes, I cut the tube along the center of the steek.

It was really wildly shaped at that point!

Another trip through the washer flattened it out a lot more, and then I trimmed off the steek remnants and evened out the sides.

It is supposed to have a blanket stitch edging to finish it off, but I don’t know that it really needs it.  It isn’t going to ever unravel – the individual strands of yarn are fully stuck together.  My other idea, just for looks, it to add a canvas binding.

But for now, I’m going to use it as is.  My toes are happy!