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[omorka]

I'd taken some Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride in two shades of green to Mississippi with me, to work on a felted tote bag. I finally finished the bag a couple of nights ago, did six feet of i-cord for the handles (gak!), and then set it aside because our car's A/C went out and things got all hectic.

Last night, I finally got around to felting it. Unfortunately, it felted completely differently than the swatch did (all I can think is that it's a knit flat vs. knit in the round issue). The upshot is that it changed from its bucket-like form to almost flat.

After some aggressive blocking, involving a shoe box filled with paperbacks and wrapped in plastic, I think I can make a decent large purse out of this. But it's not a tote bag.

I'm about ready to throw up my hands and just do a Booga J bag by the book instead of trying to get the shape I actually want and failing repeatedly. :( But then I'd have to knit with Kureyon, and while I love the colors, I can't stand the feel of that stuff - all scratchy and crunchy. (Despite having bought three skeins of Silk Garden to make a caplelet for Homecoming.) I know, I could make the Booga J with Lamb's Pride, but it seems awfully dull without the stripes.

I will say the experiment with double-stranding two different colors and then felting was reasonably successful; it turned into a nice heathery mix. So that part came out fairly nicely, despite everything.

I also picked up some plain ol' Lion Incredible in a nice coppery ombre for my third version of the Solomon's Knot shawl. I should get around to posting pictures of the first two sometime.

Comments

[pinesandmaples]

You should try felting some Manos or handpaintedyarn.com yarns. They're both those naturally varigated yarns that are still solids. And they felt amazingly. Not that I felt. I think Silk Garden felts, too. Think.

[greeneyedpagan.livejournal.com]

The felted tote I made is not perfect, but it works. I would have liked it to have shrunk more horizontally than it did, and less vertically. I miscalculated the swatch shrinkage, I think. I just made another bag, using Paton's Classic Wool (I got an amazing deal on eBay), and the size is what I expected. I just made the pattern up, and did two stupid things, but it is still very usable. I worked on the assumption of 40% vertical shrinkage, and 28% horizontal shrinkage. I double-stranded the bottom, and because I am sometimes an idiot, didn't do a double-stranded swatch. So, the bottom shrunk less than the top, and I now have a beautiful dark green penis bag. :)
I wanted it to be tall enough to carry books for work, and it is, but the bottom is wider than the body, and it looks a little odd. I still like it. I like the handles very much, as well. I used the handles from this bag - http://www.crochet-knit.com/item_1027.html.

I have also made several bags with stripes, ala Booga J bag, using Lamb's Pride. Easy when you are going to felt, of course, because you can tie the yarn.

I love felting. I think it is just too much fun, and the finished products are so very durable - no worries about snagging stitches, or adding a lining, etc. And I am bound and damned determined to perfect my perfect bag pattern. We all want/need something different in our bags, and we know what we need better than someone else. So I just keep trying...