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It is Easter Time and I have created felted knit Easter Eggs!

You can find my felted knit Easter Egg free pattern below. Here is a quick link to get you there! Click here for pattern.

I don’t like to waste anything, to a fault, as those who know me can attest. Moving on… I tried my hand at looming, and ended up with a lot of smaller strips of yarn, and saved them. My initial idea was to make a felted dryer ball. You can see the approximate lengths below.

The yarn is 100% wool so will felt, which is good. I knew I wanted to felt something because the yarn is short and I would have to change yarn too frequently so I couldn’t make something realistically neat, yet unfelted.

A while ago I found a nice quick pattern for a small knit Christmas tree: Click Here – Opens in a New Tab. I decided to knit, and felt these trees with my scraps.  It turned out very nicely, as you can see. And I realized hand felting takes a long time (of course hand felted items are so expensive)!

I am a vender at craft fairs, which occur typically around Christmas, so I have made quite a few of these for selling at the next one!

I finally got through my longer yarn scraps!  While I have very tiny scraps, they have been too much headache to knit into something so I’m going to make wool dryer balls…or dryer ball with the left overs.  After I thought my felting kick was over I came across more 100% wool yarn! This is an old skein of yarn, as you can see with their new sleeves. They have a variety of wonderful natural colors, you can find the yarn here.

I bought this years ago to make my first felted item: a bag.  

After I saw this yarn, my mind was racing: what can I felt now?! As grand visions were flooding my mind, I realized I needed to set my sights on smaller items. Past experience has taught me, while using up yarn, creating small items is better, because when my “scrap project” is nearing the end I will have to get one more skein to finish… and the vicious cycle continues with the 50%, 75% left over, new skein!

Past experience?! Years ago, I had a ton of Christmas-y red, green and cream yarn so I made a blanket.  The yarn ran out and the blanket would have been a terrible, awkward length!  So I had two options: to rip it apart (never!) or get more yarn (the downfall of a supportive spouse, I blame him for my growing yarn stash!) and continue!

Back to my new found 100% wool yarn. Since I’m on a felting kick and Easter is right around the corner I have decided to make Easter eggs! Please enjoy this free pattern. I only ask that if you use this that you credit me.

Felted Easter Egg Pattern (Free):

Note: this is knit flat, and is not a stuffed 3D egg.

What you need:

• Yarn (I would suggest yarn that felts, as you will see in a picture below, you will need to block really well to make it into a better “egg shape”)
• Size 5 needles (this is what I used, any reasonable size will work fine!)

Abbreviations:

• k: knit
• kfb: knit front back in same loop
• ssk: slip slip knit
• k2tog: knit two together

Directions:

Cast On 8 stitches.

Row 1 (Increase Row): k1, kfb, knit to last two stitches on needle, kfb, k1

Row 2: Knit.

Rows 3 to 14: repeat rows 1 and 2 until you end up with 20 stitches on needle.

Rows 15-22: Knit

Row 23 (Decrease Row): k1, ssk, knit until last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 [18 sts]

Row 24: Knit

Row 25: Repeat Row 23 (decrease row) [16 sts]

Row 26: Knit

Row 27: Knit

Row 28: Repeat Row 23 (decrease row) [14 sts]

Row 29: Knit

Row 30: Repeat Row 23 (decrease row) [12 sts]

Row 31: Knit

Row 32: Repeat Row 23 (decrease row) [10 sts]

Row 33: Knit

Row 34: Knit

Row 35: Repeat Row 23 (decrease row) [8 sts]

Row 36: Knit

Row 37: Knit

Row 38: Repeat Row 23 (decrease row) [6 sts]

Row 39: Cast Off

I felted by hand: added a tiny bit of dish soap to the egg, dipped it in warm/hot water and rubbed the egg together. I continued this until the rows blended together and the egg looked like one mass of fabric.

When felting, different yarns felt at different rates. So, as gauge doesn’t really matter, it will change depending on the yarn you use, and how much you actually felt the eggs. (And honestly, if you felt the egg, it does not matter how you decrease the rows, you can use the same k2tog if you want, because you won’t see the slanting after the felting process.)

Options! We love options!

While I followed this pattern exactly, used one natural color and made garland. I ended up dying many of the eggs below to change the color. You can vary the size, colors and use!

Size: You can increase the size easily by adding more stitches to cast on, and while you will have to continue the increasing rows portion, you can stop when you get a good width for you, then add a few more rows of knit and then decreasing rows, and I might add the same number of decreasing rows as you did increasing rows.

Or you could make smaller eggs, and depending on how small, you might be able to knit a circle, and pull the top harder when you felt it.

The difficulty with an egg shape is that the top and bottom don’t increase and decrease at the same rate (if you look, the bottom curves more like a circle, while the top looks, or curves more like an oval). This means when you are decreasing your egg, you do not want to do a same number of knit rows between decrease rows, as it will look straighter or curvy-er; variation is the key!

Colors: I love this small knit, because you can do a quick egg and the do another and change the color pattern: stripes, Fair Isle knitting (multiple colors within the same row).  You could knit with two yarns and do a more heathered color.  The sky is the limit!  I think this is what makes knitting the best: you take someone’s idea and turn it into your own!

I have found that with felting, you have more control over the shape, and as you can see, the unfelted egg isn’t as “egg” shape as the final version, so if you do not felt, you will have to block (and some yarns take to blocking better than others!).

I have some yarn from my Great Aunt Laura, some felts, some does not. And as very little of the yarn is labeled it is with great care of choosing the yarn to use, and lots of prayers that it will felt!

I have gathered some yarn that looks like it could felt and tried different colors with my neutral yarn to get different eggs. (As you can see with the pink/purple one, I picked one little piece of yarn that will not felt, but I’ve convinced myself I’m okay with it, because it gives the egg a zig-zag look!)

Because you do not have access to Great Aunt Laura’s colorful yarn I came across this yarn, called Wool of the Andes, it is worsted weight and felts nicely. This would be amazing to use, it is not expensive and they have tons of different colors to choose from! (And I think during Christmas time, I might get some Christmas colors to use and make some garland with my felted Christmas Trees!!)

Lion Brand also has some beautiful dusty pink yarn here. And a few other colors this yarn is a combination of Merino, Yak and Alpaca yarn!

Using the same neutral yarn, I changed the color and dyed my eggs. To get the yellow color I used turmeric, and like how it looks!

To do this I sprinkled turmeric in the bottom of a bowl, added warm water, dipped the egg in it a few times, squeezed out the extra water and let it dry sitting up. It was quick! Because I’m not planning on washing or doing anything “rough” with these eggs, I’m fine with what I did. When you look up natural dying, you can set the dye more, and do extra things, but the color changed in my egg and that is all that I wanted!

In the top row of eggs below, the first egg is a blueish, greenish, gray color I used black beans to dye it; the middle egg, with a dark blue line on top, I used blackberries; the last egg I used Hibiscus tea. In the bottom row, the first egg is not dyed, I just used a yellowish yarn on top; the middle egg I used red cabbage to dye it; and the final photo contains many of the eggs!

As mentioned above I made Easter Egg garland, but you could do so many different things with these eggs. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Garland: make a bunch, sew them together and hang it up;
• Coasters: I would make a little larger for a coaster;
• Pillow: you could sew an egg, or multiple ones on a pillow;
• Card: people make the most beautiful cards, you could attach one onto a card;
• Wreath: you could make a bunch and attach these to a wreath;
• Ornament: some people have Easter trees;
• Art: they might be too thick for a normal picture frame, but you could put in a shadowbox;
• Baskets: attach to an Easter basket for decoration on outside (one on handle, multiple around);
• Decoration: they are beautiful just as is!

Go forth and knit and create! I would love to hear what you make!  

If you are enjoying the Easter theme I have a Bunny Rabbit free pattern you can find here.