A thread curtain made of felting wool.... How do I felt individual threads???

Hi... I need your advice.
A friend of mine is crocheting a string curtain; she’s already finished about 50 leaves. Now, according to the pattern, she’s supposed to cut 50 strings, each 2.50 long, and felt them... But the pattern doesn’t say... We can’t exactly just stuff them into a laundry bag and toss them in the washing machine.... I don’t think we’ll ever be able to untangle them again....
Does anyone have any ideas????
The yarn shop where she bought the pattern and yarn (over 70€ after all) didn’t know either.... and the pattern is very “sparing” on details. It’s a “commercial” pattern (maybe just meant as an advertisement for the yarn???). In any case, there was no one there who could help....
It would be great if you guys had a “lifesaving idea.” ...

Hi Steffi,
I can only imagine doing this by wet felting by hand. How long and how thick are the strands supposed to be in the end? And will the felt leaves be sewn on later?

I think the cords aren’t felted in the washing machine; instead, the felt fluff/strands are rolled and rubbed by hand with water and soap. The fibers will bond together, but you really have to rub and roll diligently. Have a look on YouTube under the title "Making felt cord". I just watched the video and thought it looked doable. In the end, there was a cord, and the young man had laid many strands of felting wool next to each other beforehand.

Best, Ina

Hi Ina..... 
So according to the pattern, these are all individual strands.....
We crocheted a “roll” that a bamboo rod is supposed to be threaded through; the felted strands are then tied to it, and the leaves are sewn onto them..... The yarn has a yardage of 50m/50g..... 
At 2.50 m, rolling and rubbing it is really a “laborious task”; we were already thinking about crocheting a foundation chain and then dry-felting it.... but with 50 strands, even that takes forever....  
I’m starting to think the pattern was only written to sell yarn and not to actually make the project..... 
We’ll try the soap/wet-felting method. I’m assuming the strands won’t shrink as much as they would in the washing machine, so we could cut the strands a little shorter and then double them up.... 

Steffi, I already mentioned in the needlework group that the pattern is from Filati. If you Google it, you’ll end up on their website, and at the bottom it says you can ask the creative team questions. Maybe they can help? 

Hey Anja..... 
We asked them.... It took forever to even get any response. And it didn’t really help either.... 

Oh, great. 🧐

This just goes to show the advantage of “customized patterns” that you can buy from CP. The author is still accountable for their product and can answer all your questions.

I agree 👍
I used to knit from these booklets a lot “back in the day.” … They just want to sell a lot of their yarn at a high price, and then there are often soooo many mistakes in the pattern… I knitted a jacket—the original yarn cost around 200€—and the pattern had four knitting charts, and only one was error-free. But that one only had 5 stitches/2 rows..... 

Dear Steffi, I used to have the same problem all the time. I’d see a pattern I liked in a magazine or book, and that was the only reason I bought it. Then the instructions were so sparse that I rarely managed to get it right. And I never had anyone to ask directly, “Hey, I’m stuck here—what does this mean? How do I continue?” That really put me off crafts. It did, however, shape the standards I set for my own patterns.

I wish you the best of luck and success with the felt cord. If the leaves turn out nicely, the cord will play a supporting role—but a visually secondary one. Maybe we can see a picture later?

Best regards, Ina

We’re doing our best…
let’s see how it turns out later 🙈😇🙈