Just what is felt, anyway?

You know sometimes we ask ourselves these deep philosophical questions to find that we were thinking too deeply in the first place.  Can you really feel, if you have never felt?
And just what is felt, anyway?

Felt is basically shrunken wool.  Wool can be shrunken if it is aggressed; don't make a sheep mad, instead, all you need to do is wash wool to shrink it.  Most of us do this to our favorite sweaters by accident.  Others of us do it on purpose- I have come to terms with this need and find that experimenting with scarf structures allows me to play with felt in a way that nourishes my creativity.  I also use my handy machine knitter to go tandem with the felt scarves, because it is sad to hand knit something only to shrink it to half its size.  It is a bit more gratifying to machine knit (still by hand) and then shrink it down.  The other joy in this process is that it is quite a bit warmer than a standard knit scarf.  If you live in the cold tundra like I do, you will appreciate this extra warmth.

The form of the scarves is another thing that remains a process for me.  I prefer that the scarf suit the wearer, so each is adjustable having only one button and multiple places to connect and attach the button within the structure of the knit scarf.