A couple of years ago, I made this purse (one like it, anyway) for the daughter of a friend of mine. I’ve always loved the look of it. It was made using Brown Sheep Nature's Pride, one of my favorite yarns, particularly for felting. It was felted and the flowers added after the felting. I really love the texture of the green yarn.
Anyway, a while back a friend of mine was talking to me about designing an afghan for her granddaughters and the first thing that came to my mind was this little purse and how cute that could be.
I’m feeling good about this. It was started while watching the new James Bond movie, 
Quantum of Solace. (OK, it’s not Casino Royale but it’s non-stop action from start to finish – pretty spectacular.) It’s definitely the sort of movie to get a lot of stockinette stitching done! Bonus 50 pts.
In this picture, you can make out the green of the rolling hills, the sky and the beginnings of a cloud. At the bottom left-hand corner, you can see what’s going to be a rabbit hole. There’s going to be a knitted rabbit that will live in the hole – at least one. I haven’t decided if it’s going to be more. With rabbits, you never know, right? Fluffy clouds and cute bunnies…gotta be Bonus 25 pts.
I’ve also used it to practice with the Portuguese knitting style and I’m finding it coming much easier now. Bonus 10 pts.
Do you knit at the movies? I do. I don’t actually go to the movies often but when I do I want some big ole fat idiot knitting with me. This usually means a felted bag or something similar. I don’t even know how long ago I started this bag using Plymouth Outback wool and mohair yarns. I love these because you can get the wool and mohair in the same colorways. I’ve made a purse using both together with the colorway synced up which was lovely but for this one, although it started with both strands together became stripes of the wool and mohair.
A while back I got the book called Andean Folk Knits by Marcia Lewandowski. One of the big pattern elements for bags is external pockets. This got me thinking about how I could incorporate these into this bag. As I started those, then I suddenly thought this must actually need to be a felted backpack. It all just sort of happened organically until I ended up with this:
I really like it but I don’t know how it will felt. Guess we’ll find that out this weekend!
When a friend and I were at Klose Knits in Urbana the other day, we saw Brigette had some felted bags for sale that were made from old wool sweaters. They were so cute but I had to ask myself, how hard could that be. I hadn’t actually thought I would do it until I drove by a Salvation Army store and, on a whim, thought, “Why not!”
I found 2 sweaters that I thought could work – a whole $3 each – and brought them 
home. I threw the 2 of them into the washer with some hot water and soap (one of them was rather nasty dirty) and let the washer, water and soap do their thing. About 15 minutes later I ended up with 2 nicely felted woolen sweaters – much cleaner as well, might I add. Last night I got the bug so went to town with the old scissors and here’s what I came up with. The great thing is that the sides are already sewn together – no seaming there. I just need to stitch up the bottom, hem the flap, matress stitch the raw edges and figure out the strap. All I did for the flap is fold the extra part from the front part of the sweater to the inside as a lining and then bring the back part over for the front flap. For the strap, I have the sleeve material and I may try to do something with that, although that will take considerably more seaming. With the way the fair isle is worked, however, I think I would still have a good flow of the pattern if I do use those pieces. The other possibility would be to buy a ready made strap. Honestly, I can’t remember now what the others looked like. Anyway, here’s my $3 felted fair isle bag! Mine won't be nearly so well-finished as the ones in the shop but, I like to try almost anything once!
How fun and easy is that!
By the way, there's no point of reference for size but it comes out as a messenger bag sort of size. If you want to try this remember the felting rule of thumb (it may only be my thumb but it has worked for me): a knitted item will tend to felt about 5-10% width-wise and about 30% lengthwise. In other words, don't expect the width of the bag to be that much less than the original sweater. If you want it smaller, just cut the side seams and sew around the both sides and the bottom.
A couple of years ago, I made this purse (one like it, anyway) for the daughter of a friend of mine. I’ve always loved the look of it. It was made using Brown Sheep Nature's Pride, one of my favorite yarns, particularly for felting. It was felted and the flowers added after the felting. I really love the texture of the green yarn.
Quantum of Solace. (OK, it’s not Casino Royale but it’s non-stop action from start to finish – pretty spectacular.) It’s definitely the sort of movie to get a lot of stockinette stitching done! Bonus 50 pts.
