Pleat purse, post-felt

Less than a week after I declared that I was too scared to felt the bag, I felted the bag. I have to say, this is probably my most successful felt project to date. I let it go through two cycles in the wash and I meant to do 1.5 (got distracted by my DVR) but it's a nice size. It's pretty much the size of all my favorite purses.

I followed the pattern author's advice and set the bag over a large cereal box to dry. I took it to work two days later and it got great reviews. All I need to do is get a magnetic closure and decide on whether I'm going to line the inside. Thoughts on why lining it would be beneficial?

Definitely a favorite pattern. I'd love to make it a few more time to give as gifts. And I kinda want to experiment with the colors next time.




Here's the bag (pre- and post-felt) on the back of the same chair. It shrank. A bunch.

















Thanks to Jose for a wonderful, wonderful Christmas gift!

Pleat purse, pre-felt

For Christmas, Jose gave me the yarn needed to make a felted bag that I've been eyeing on KnitPicks. It wasn't cheating, because I didn't buy it. Anyway, I've finally finished knitting it, and I think it's fabulous. It's heavy, but fabulous. Now comes the hard part: felting it. I call it the 'hard part' because I'm scared to put it in the washing machine and relinquish control of it. What if I overfelt it like I did the drink cozies?

If it turns out well, this may a frequent pattern for me. The materials are not terribly expensive and I can knit it while watching TV...perfect! I would like to try some different colors next time. And I've been scheming to reduce the pattern to make a smaller version for my niece. That's a lot of math...

I wish there was a professional felter that you could call to finish big projects like this. Like a base runner. Or a pinch hitter. Ah well, stay tuned for the finished product (for better or worse)!

Cozies and Clutches: Post-Felt

In the past I've felted a few rounds of cozies, three christmas stockings and a messenger bag. I would say that I'm far from perfecting my methods, but before this last batch I thought I was a lot closer to perfection than is true. I've read tips about checking the pieces throughout the felting process to ensure that over-felting does not occur, but I kinda thought that was silly. Or maybe I just thought that my washing machine wasn't intense enough to cause over-felting. I was wrong.

I'm pretty environmentally responsible. We reuse more than we don't, we recycle more than we trash. But water, water is my hot button topic. I HATE to waste water, I HATE it. So when I have things to felt, I try to save them up to do all at once to minimize the waste. And even then, I cut my usual 4-5 minute shower down to about 2 minutes as an extra gesture of conservation.

While environmentally responsible, it probably wasn't the best thing for my pieces. I checked the cozies after the first round of felting and they definitely needed more time. The mistake I made was not checking them during the second round. They shrank too much and the insides of them even started to attach to each other. I've fixed them all up (photo below) but I wish they were taller.

The clutches...I was totally freelancing the patterns and that wasn't the best idea either. The yarn was bulky and that worked a little differently than regular worsted. I think the flaps are a little short, but I'm going to work with them and see if the finished product is close to what I had in mind.

my cozie army...















all the clutches (the bottom one is more like a wallet or eyeglasses case)...




















the black clutch up close...

Cozies and Clutches: Pre-Felt

In an attempt to jump-start my stash knit-a-thon, I started working on wool that I had bought with the intent of felting.

First up: two skeins of multi-colored yarn from Michael's bought to knit can cozies from Pints and Purls. I made a slew of them last year and set them out for a party with a "use one, take one" sign and there were none left! We're having a Christmas party and a New Year's party this year, so I thought it would be a great time to get those done!

Second up: several skeins of KnitPicks Wool of the Andes. I didn't have anything in particular in mind, so I decided to knit some clutches. I wasn't using patterns, so we'll see how those come out.

Photos (all pre-felt):

the clutches...













cozy pile...
















brown and green cozy...



















pink and brown cozy...

Finished Project Four: Messenger Bag

I'm a multitasker. I love to watch TV and knit, I love to knit in meetings, I love to knit while hanging out with friends. I'm a multitasker who loves to knit. The problem with this is that I try to do projects that are too complicated for multitasking and I end up coming home and ripping it all out. Then I saw a book called Pints and Purls: Portable Projects for the Social Knitter and it hit me: that's what I am. I'm a social knitter!

The book is truly fabulous. It has simple patterns, felted projects, funky-fun projects and a few more serious patterns thrown in. The funny schtick to the book is a rating for each pattern--in drinks. They show you on a scale of 1-4 about how many drinks you can consume and still work on the project. Very clever. In my case, I translate the drinks to mouths. How much can I talk while knitting this project? I target the 4 bottle projects mostly.

The first one that I started was this messenger bag that I HAD TO HAVE. I ordered the yarn from KnitPicks and it came in under $20. The pattern served me well and I made the bag over many potlucks, happy hours, conference calls and board meetings. But then it came time to stitch the pieces together for felting. In fear, I stuffed the pieces in a bag and put them away. Inspired by this challenge of finishing projects and knitting my stash, I brought out the pieces, stitched them together and voila!

The messenger bag, open...



















The messenger bag, closed...



















Knit in KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, Claret Heather.