In felting as well as knitting gauge, gauge, gauge. Next time you want to knit a balmoral and felt it, knit a 4X4 inch swatch and determining your stitch to row gauge. Once you have a stitch to row gauge felt the swatch to determine shrinkage. Make sure you mark the swatch in some way to determine which way your stitches go compared to the rows. Stitches and rows do not shrink at the same rate.