My bag

I left for Toronto on Friday afternoon, after finishing up summer camp, biking around town in the interests of my fish, and generally trying to do everything last minute that I should have spread out over the past week. With half an hour to spare before leaving the house, I decided I absolutely must have a new bag.

Luck was with me (having deserted me the night before in a linen pants incident about which I am not quite ready to think), and the bag creation went smoothly and ended up pretty much just as I wished!


This lovely canvas-type fabric was a sort of impulse buy during my quilt fabric shopping spree, bought with the specific intent of making a new bag. I am ever so proud that I actually followed through.

Naturally, with more time, there are a few extras I would have added - interior pockets, probably an exterior pocket between the straps. It has a sort of secret pocket perfect for my fast approaching Central American travels - a flap from the outside folds over to the inside, the perfect size for passport and money protection.

I really just love the colors. Lately I seem to have been developing an unconscious affinity for dusty pink (the flowers are pink. Upon viewing my picture I see that this is somewhat indiscernible. Oops. In real life they are actually quite prominent). My mother says that it is generally a sort of grandmother color, but then I have always had elderly qualities :)

I think this post takes the prize for the most parentheses. Yay.

Who would have thought?

This unprepossessing little piece of knitting was my final effort in a long felting saga.

The story began in Virginia, where I read a magazine article about turning old wool sweaters into purses. What an exciting idea! So over the holidays I made a trip to a local thrift store and found a lovely green, 100% wool sweater, took it home, and tossed it in the washer, with plenty of soap and the water set to hot. Twenty minutes or so later, and the cycle was over. Imagine my surprise on lifting from the machine, not a nicely shrunken piece of felt, but a lovely green sweater whose only change was to be, perhaps, a bit cleaner.

Another attempt was made, adding a larger quantity of soap and extra items to increase the agitation, and the sweater still did not felt. Ok, I thought, this must be a case of the wool having some sort of felt-resistant coating. Not unheard of in commercial wool. So I took a piece of knitting, done by my mother, and threw that in. Still no luck. I tried a handknit, homespun wool sweater. Again no felt. That's when the above pictured knitting took place. Not exactly sure what my logic was, but I needed another choice and it just seemed right. This also did not felt. I was thouroughly confused. Isn't it the second most common laundry disaster, after turning the whites pink, to felt the woolens? And all I was left with was a pile of wet wool. So I tossed everything into the dryer. And here the story takes a turn for the better: an hour later, everything except my original green thrifted sweater was nicely felted. The only piece I ended up using was my little knitted rectangle, which became a sweet little bag for a friend's Christmas gift, with the addition of a canvas handle and a needle-felted decoration.

I still want to try this sweater-to-bag plan, but I'm just not sure when I'll find the time. Turns out felting is a tougher process than I had realized!