A few projects to update:
firstly another felted bag. This was completed at the same time as the others but I've only just found the camera charger and now feel comfortable using the camera again knowing the batteries can be charged.

Lincraft Cosy Wool, 1.5 balls. 5.5mm needles. This bag carries my sock WIPs.

Also completed Patonyle Socks #4314 from a destash in Ravelry.

Just wanted to see how they would knit up. Lucky to have the stripes match up.
2.5mm needles and my sock recipe.


Lion Brand Magic Stripes 2.5mm needles and my sock recipe. This is a bit scratchy after the Patonyle so they are hibernating for a bit.

I saw these on Ravelry and had to have a try at making them. In a coincidental twist, last night I was surfing the stash for yarn to use for my next pair of socks and decided that I am competent enough at knitting socks to use my hand dyed tiger yarn that I made ages ago (think 2 yrs ago or so it's been waiting that long) so they were already ear-marked as the next socks.

I even want to name them the same but feel it would be 'wrong' to, so I've called mine Tiger Feet Socks.
The details are duplicate stitched on which would be easier than changing yarn for such short runs of colour.




Nearly forgot....
Finished my Raspberry Cowl and had enough yarn leftover to make a pair of fetchings.







Handyed cleckheaton country 8ply beige. 4mm needles for Fetching, 4.5mm for Cowl.
Cowl pattern is Forest Canopy Cowl. Had a blast knitting these.

Bag Adventures...

I have my knitting mojo back in felted bags at the moment. There have been lots of discoveries during this Research and Development phase. I am trying to find a 'goto' bag pattern. So far my experiments have ended up too big, too thin, and almost perfect.

Some tips for felting:

• Don't use towels, the lint will mute the colour of your bag, when I used jeans, the colours were much brighter and obviously no lint was on the bag when it came out of the machine.
  

• For a first attempt, stick to the pattern, I wanted a big bag - not a huge bag that is not good for anything. (see previous post)

• Maybe putting the item in a zippered pillow case is not a good idea, I never ran into any problems when I just threw it in the machine. (see below)
  

• Check the handles, when I used the pillow case the handles must have rolled in on themselves and felted that way therefore they ended up waaaay narrow.

• Check the bag, when I used the pillow case the bag felted in on itself where it was folded in half and put into said pillow case. Was difficult to pull apart and still has creases where it melded to itself.

To summarise: pictures later as blogger is not playing nice today, oh here we are...

First Bag: French Market Bag 256 sts around is waay too biig.
See last post for pics.

Second Bag: French Market Bag with 164 sts is still a little on the big side but not too bad, handles are a bit too short.






Third bag: Ann's Petite Felted Bag, this is the one where I mucked it up by putting it in the pillow case for felting, apart from that it is a good size and I am making a second one that will be perfect :)





See the difference in handle with? I assure you they are both 9 sts wide.


Fourth Bag: Petite Felted Carrier, decreasing the handles at a rate of 9 rows to make up for the mod to change to two handles. No pics - but a WIP none the less.

All of these are knitted with Vintage Hues and 5.5mm needles.

Cat Content:



They line up for food in our house. Always in this order though.

Bag? What Bag?

I should have listened to that inner voice. I sort of did when I ripped back 10 rows but I should have gone further. I thought it was huge but was kinda sure that it would lose inches in the felting process. It shrank heaps length wise and not much widthwise.
Dimensions before were:
14inches across bottom square base
14 inches tall
(Blogger insists this is the right way up for this picture)


After felting it was:
12 inches square across bottom base and
8 inches tall

It felted really nicely, lost lots of colour variation though as it all melded together.
Miss A saw it and instantly said "I'll have it", after a fit of laughter at it's size, so it has gone to her as planned. I still think it would make a better cat bed. Gee, looking at those pictures though I can see that it did shrink a fair bit. It is still huuuge.

I am now going to raid all the pure wool from my stash, I know I have cat bed yarn in there somewhere. And I want to make another smaller bag for myself in the same colour. At least I know it will take a shorter amount of time as it will be way smaller than this one. I am planning 10 inches square base and 14-16 inches for the sides - I still want it taller.

Please knitting goddess, don't let me accidentally make something out of non-feltable yarn. Cos we all know that's where I am headed next.