Adventures in Felting

I did it, I finally weaved in all the ends on my Huggable Hedgehog from Fiber Trends and made my way to the washer for felting duty. I've never felted before but knowing that I have a good washing machine there should be no problems. I selected Regular, Hot water, (picture shows current load not Mr. Hedgie) Low water level and tossed Mr. Hedgie into a zippered pillow case and ensured hot water was going into the tub. Five minutes after agitation commenced I took out the pillow case and that water was COOL. OK I didn't have my new glasses on when I set this, but I FELT hot water filling the tub. So I drained the cool water out and MFB came to make sure I was pushing the right buttons and he is a witness to the hot water flowing into the tub. Five minutes later, Cool water again. This happened a couple of times.

So we turn the cold water supply to the machine off. Logical, no? A couple minutes later in the middle of the hot water wash it starts a new beeping sound and the cold water light starts flashing. We now have two reasonably sane people trying to have a rational conversation with a washing machine about the logic be it human or computer of Hot water not standing for Cold. I go to the manufacturer's website and find the phone number for Customer Service. I know it's a holiday here in the States but this is a New Zealand company and they answered on the second ring. The very nice New Zealand sounding man on the phone said "Oh, you want a traditional hot water wash then." Apparently the logic of our washer is that it starts with hot water but then cools off. We had to program the Favorite button on the washer so that it's only hot water. Imagine that.

So here's Mr. Hedgie felted, temporarily stuffed and drying. The only problem I have is that the back where I carried the fun fur along with the wool hardly felted at all. Maybe that's normal? If any of you have hung in this post long enough to get to this point and have any insight I'd sure appreciate your feedback. I want to embroider his nose and eyes if I can get a needle through the felt. Molly at my LYS said to "Felt the Crap" out of this and not knowing the exact definition of it in this vernacular I think I surpassed the crap level on the body in an effort to get the back of him to felt. When rinsing Mr. Hedgie I discovered that one of the paws almost felted shut. Busting through the fibers to get it open again was a bit of work. If I find it too difficult to embroider then I'll have to purchase the eyes and nose. This picture doesn't accurately show his cuteness quotient.