Felt Knits vs Felt Crochet

Knitting and Crochet Felting Samples

I read that felting shrinks your pieces more lengthwise than it does widthwise, so I decided to do some experiment as soon as my new felting wool arrived. All yarn shown here are 100% wool. This was done by hand felting.

I also did both knitted and crochet swatches as there is not a lot of literature on Crochet Felting and I wanted to see for myself what the difference was and why it seems less popular than felt knitting.

I am sorry I forgot to take photos of the pre-felted pieces. (It was late in the night and I was too eager to knit and felt for the first time!) So all I can do now is draw outlines that, though not the real size, are to comparative scale so you can visually see the shrinkage from felting.

Every yarn felts and shrinks differently. This is only to confirm that shrinkage does occur more along the length (number of rows) then it does along the width (number of stitches). This seems true for knitted items but not for crocheted items.

Knitting vs Crochet Shrinkage in Felting

As you can see, my crochet swatch sample has shrunk more width-wise than it has length wise. I cannot guarantee that this will always be the case as this is only one sampling. But does at least say that the shrinkage you will face when you are knitting vs. crocheting with an aim to felting them, can be very different.

Other Differences between Felt Knits and Felt Crochet

Felted crochet is thicker and firmer. (So you might find that felted crochet might be good for base of bags, totes, etc.)
Felt crochet has more 'holes' (as a result of the difference in the structure of knit and crochet stitches). This may or may not be a good thing depending on what you are aiming for. For example, the 'holes' in felted crochet allows you to easily embroider ribbon or gauze ribbon and cords to embellish your finished pieces.
Sorry, even my close up does not show these holes. But you can see them if you hold them up to the light.